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Along the Friendly Way 



A 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

A Concentric Chart of History 

The Captain of The Janizaries 

The Age of The Crusades 

Deborah, a Daughter of Jerusalem 

Incentives for Life 

Sir Raoul ; A Tale of Venice 
and Constantinople 

Judge West's Opinion 

Avanti ; A Tale of Sicily 



Along 
The Friendly Way 

Reminiscences and Impressions 
By 

JAMES M. LUDLOW 




New York 

Fleming 

London 



Chicago 

H. Revell Company 

and Edinburgh 



Copyright, 19 19, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



.LIAS 



New York : 1 58 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh : 75 Princes Street 



©CI.A535523 

OCT 29 1919 " 



To 

MY GRANDCHILDREN 



Salutation 



MAN is walking toward the sunset. He 



stops; turns half about. He is fascinated 



X -m. w ith something in the direction from which 
he has come. There is a reflected glow in the sky, 
which burnishes the zenith and makes the eastern 
horizon almost rival in beauty the more gorgeous 
colors of the west. A delicate purple invests the 
familiar hills, as if they had put on their richest 
garments to wave the traveller a loving farewell. 
The windows of the scattered houses gleam as from 
familiar hearth-fires. There are glimmerings of 
lake and stream which seem to give him the wink 
of remembered friendship. And through the land- 
scape runs the road he has travelled, its dust trans- 
formed into powdered gold, its steep acclivities 
levelled by the distance, and the turnings which 
bewildered him as he passed along now all straight- 
ened by the long perspective. 

I am that man. I am " going west," and have 
nearly completed the eighth decade of the journey. 

Of course, I am interested in the sunset, and al- 
most excitedly curious to know what lies beyond it. 
Am I to enter and be a sentient part of the glory? 
Or will those gates of iridescent pearl be an ever- 
receding horizon, only an eternal invitation and 




7 



8 



SALUTATION 



allurement? Or, may I not suddenly be halted by 
the dark? The future is a mystery. What things 
are " over there " are as yet in God's hand, — the 
closed hand with which He offers them. 

But there is no uncertainty about the backward 
view. It is all agleam with the things which that 
same Hand once dropped about me. From what I 
know I can trust the still unknown. In spite of 
sorrows, bewilderments, mistakes — and worse, I am 
so far along. The retrospect of life is a happy 
pastime, — that is, when I am wise enough to forget 
some things. Why should I not forget them, since 
the good book assures me that He no longer remem- 
bers them against me? 

If it gives an old man pleasure to think over the 
past, it may be profitable to others who are 
coming the same way that he should talk out loud 
what he thinks, 

"When all the landscape of our lives 
Lies stretched behind us, and familiar places 
Gleam in the distance, and sweet memories 
Rise like a tender haze, and magnify 
The objects we behold, that soon must vanish.' ' 

Let me have an understanding with any one who 
may read these pages. The book is not an auto- 
biography. Such a book tries to tell what the writer 
was and did. But looking back over the years I do 
not find myself sufficiently interested in what I was 
or did to chronicle it. But what men and things 
did to me is a more important matter, and may be 



SALUTATION 



9 



worth while telling. Let us talk of some of the 
scratches, indentations and shapings a man is apt 
to get as he tumbles along in the great common 
current. 

Nor is the book a record of a special professional 
career. One's occupation only gives him his place 
in the stream, and determines what things will 
strike him ; but the effect is about the same with us 
all. That one man is a preacher and another man 
a printer is something accidental, as scientists 
would say, and not essential to their both being 
men. I take it, from familiarity with thousands of 
all sorts of people, that the deeper interests that 
absorb us, the greater passions that sway us, the 
more potent influences that make up character, are 
similar in the experience of the majority of men. 

These pages are, therefore, simply little bundles 
of reminiscence of one human being looking back 
from the Psalmist's Bound of Life over the way he 
has trudged along with the crowd of his generation. 

And that crowd! How it has jostled me, as, 
until recently, I have been compelled to lead an 
active life! In the multitude of fellow-trampers 
I struck antagonisms. But the recollection of such 
things grows very dim, while the road of memory is 
thronged with kindly faces and helping hands. So 
I title the book Along the Friendly Way, and ask 
you to jog along with me a little while. 

J. M. L. 

East Orange, N. J. 



Contents 



I. Some Preliminaries . 15 

Birth — What is it ? 
Ancestral Ingredients. 
The Divine Abyss. 
Not Fully Arrived. 
Vicarious Motherhood. 
The Invisible Guide. 

II. Earliest Recollections „ . 37 

Memory or Imagination. 
Children's Lies. 
A Young Anarchist. 
First Physical Suffering. 
First Contact with Greatness. 
First Call of Patriotism. 
Flare of the Grand Flame. 
Loneliness — The Dusky Road. 
The World Breaking in. 
Boyish Adventure. 
A Sin Its Own Cure. 

III. BOARDING-SCHOOL DAYS .... 73 

Near to Nature's Heart — A Nest ; Not an 

Incubator. 
Old-time Sports — Young Nimrods. 
A Psychological Puzzle. 
Special Providence Recognized. 
Boyish Influences. 
Companionships Unfelt. 
Kindergarten Archaeology,, 
11 



12 



CONTENTS 



IV. Religious Impressions .... 98 

First Sight of Death. 

Spiritual Influence of Places and Men. 

A Boy's Feeling — Dominates After Experience. 

The Old School Sixty Years After. 

V. Adrift 114 

Other Schools — Spineless Education. 
By-products of Schooling. 
Sinister Influences. 
A Friendly Rescue. 
A Teacher Taught. 

VI. College Days . . . . . .136 

Temptations. 
Old-time Prex. 
Drill and Training. 

An Amateur Tramp — A Derelict in Port. 
A Political Puzzle — Lincoln in the Gas-light. 
The Un-Civil War— A Wrecked Class. 

VII. Out in the World 167 

Choice of a Profession — Taste versus Talent. 
The Wife. 
Downs and Ups. 
Other's Hands on Ours. 
My Mentor. 

A Tumble and the Rebound. 



VIII. Men and Men 195 

What is Man ? — Contrasts. 
Men Who are Misunderstood. 
Reputations often Mislabels. 
Obstinacy, or Wide-eyedness ? 

IX. Some Mysteries 215 

A Cloud over the House — The Dead Live. 
Occult Suggestions . 
Telepathic Suggestions. 
Literary Assimilation. 



CONTENTS 



13 



X. Rest Cures . . . . . .231 

Change of Thought. 
Literary Diversion. 

Change of Scene — Rapid Motion — Entertaining 
Royalty — Camping and Tramping in Strange 
Lands — Human Curios — A Savant in Camou- 
flage. 

XI. Friends 266 

Friends Unlike Ourselves. 
Friends Antagonistic. 
Some Odd Friendships. 
Descensus Averno. 
Beneath the Skin. 

XII. Retirement ...... 299 

A Mistake for Many. 
The New Liberty. 
Sailing Away. 
Drifting With the Ages. 

XIII. Bungalow Days . . . . .315 

The Retreat. 

Self-diagnosis of Old Age. 
Old Age Losses and Gains. 

XIV. Recreations of Age . . . . 337 

Dust-bin Archives — Pot-Pourri. 
Memories Revived and Revised. 
Little Things. 

On Good Terms with Nature. 

Owling Hours. 

The Great Gloaming. 



I 



SOME PRELIMINAKIES 

/ Am Born. 

SO says our big family Bible, on one of the 
unprinted leaves between the Old and New 
Testaments, right next to the Apocrypha, of 
which unauthenticated records I am inclined to 
think it a part. The dictionary defines " born " as 
" brought into being " ; and I am somewhat sceptical 
of the current notion that the assumption of one's 
present manikin form marks the absolute beginning 
of one's existence. To borrow a figure from the 
electric bulb under which I am now sitting, I con- 
ceive that present life may be only a briefly elon- 
gated spark leaping a gap between two eternities ; 
that the happenings, doings and experiences of the 
mortal estate furnish, as it were, only the material 
of a sort of incandescent wire which gives tem- 
porary shape and visibility to a spiritual something 
that always was and always will be. 

To this notion I am sometimes inclined from 
having often had those shadowy reminiscences of 
which Plato speaks in arguing for a previous state 
of existence. Even as a child I was frequently 
puzzled in going to a hitherto unvisited place by a 

15 



16 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



vivid persuasion that I had been the same way be- 
fore. My memory seemed to supply road-marks 
before my senses detected them. Is there a subcon- 
scious recollection whose diary is written, not on 
brain tissue, but upon some finer and imperishable 
filament of the soul? Is there a sort of spiritual 
power in men, akin to the scent in deer, which dis- 
cerns old runways from which all footprints have 
been obliterated? Do we possess something of a 
higher order akin to the instinct which enables a cat 
carried away in a darkened basket to retrace her 
way home; or to that of birds that migrate for 
their winter vacations in the far South and return 
again to their old nests on our northern lawns, 
though they find no wing-scratches on the air? 

But alas for me! though my memory — or my 
imagination — seems to blaze the way, I confess that 
it does not lead me clearly enough through the 
prenatal homeland to assure me that I shall not get 
lost in my present transmigratory speculations. I 
can only venture the opinion that I may have 
tarried in those zones, as Edwin Arnold describes 
them in " The Light of Asia," 

. . . " where saintliest spirits dead 
Wait ten thousand years, then live again. 7 ■ 

Or, where souls 

. . . "as feathered reed-seeds fly 

'er rock and loam and sand, until they find 

Their marsh, and multiply.' ' 



SOME PEELIMINAEIES 17 



In this one respect I sympathize with Schopen- 
hauer. One day, as he was walking with head 
bowed by the weight of his meditations, a rude 
fellow butted into him. 

" Who are you anyway? " said the rowdy. 

The philosopher eyed the intruder sadly as he 
responded, " Who am I? How I wish I knew! " 

But, while I cannot solve the mystery of human 
origin, I decline to search for it in the marshes of 
pessimism where fancy transforms punk-glows into 
demons' heads. There are sun-clad hills from 
which one can see farther than through the fogs. 
Bright clouds doubtless shut out the view of the 
horizon as effectually as do the black clouds, but I 
like the bright obscurations. I prefer to build my 
ancestral " castle in the air " out of them rather 
than with the dank vapors of the abyss. So, if 
the pages of my prenatal journal are written in 
what to me is a dead language — only a few un- 
decipherable hieroglyphic letters — these letters, 
like some in old manuscripts, are " illuminated " 
with bright colors. Here are some of the vagaries 
that please me in day-dreaming. 

When I was a mere child, and had no more 
knowledge of architecture than has a papoose in a 
tepee, I watched some men building a factory. 
Suddenly the bricks in the walls were magnified in 
my imagination, as we sometimes see the pebbles on 
the beach changed into great boulders under the 
magic of a mirage. The low outlines of the factory 
swelled and swelled into palatial proportions and 



18 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



exquisite symmetry, with fagade and towers and 
dome. Since then I have indulged in globe-trot- 
ting, and have many times been startled by seeing 
in eastern lands partial reproductions of my child- 
hood vision, but never on grander scale than in my 
apparent recollection. They were strange to me, 
yet strangely familiar. Had I ever seen them be- 
fore — when I was an oriental courtier, or a nomad 
thief in the narrow streets of an Arab town, or a 
dog that watched these structures with half-open 
eyes as I slept on the sun-baked pavement? 

Then, too, I have no artistic taste, — at least I 
have never been accused of it. My family would 
not trust me to buy an ornamental hitching-post 
outside the lawn gate ; yet, as I have sat half asleep 
on the piazza, troops of fairies have danced on the 
lawn, any one of whom was as gracefully formed as 
faun or goddess in the Uffizi or Vatican. 

Now if it be true that, as psychologists say, 
dreams are made up of the disjecta membra of 
waking visions, I must have somewhere seen the 
substance of these things, if not on the mirror of a 
fleshly eye, at least on some spiritual retina I may 
have once possessed. Notwithstanding the vague- 
ness and mystery of these experiences I am not 
prepared to dispute so eminent authority as Max 
Miiller, who says, — " We may have gazed on beauty 
in a former life. It certainly is not of this life, but 
it certainly underlies this life." So I wonder if my 
subliminal consciousness, in its wanderings along 
the threshold of present existence, has not beeu 



SOME PKELIMINAKIES 19 



vehicled by another body, or if I may not have 
flitted as a ghost over these same material things. 

It may be that my subliminal consciousness was 
never before incarnated; that, in its roaming 
through space, it had not " entered " the earth's at- 
mosphere, where, to adopt the conceit of Tasso, 

. . . " it rolled 
The air around its viewless essence, so 
That mortal eye the vision might behold.' ' 

It may have been a non-material intelligence that 
saw everything without eyes and felt everything 
without touch. Milton thought of us as made up of 
at least four layers, the outer man and " the inner 
man that is the spirit of the soul." Some of the 
Christian Fathers, like Origen, held that souls were 
created before bodies, and afterwards discovered 
their proper or congenial habitations. How long 
souls are out prospecting, these wise men do not 
say ; they only suggest that during these pioneering 
expeditions souls acquire much knowledge of which 
present mind can have nothing but vague reminis- 
cences. 

To this band of sages my old nurse doubtless be- 
longed. I once asked her, "Where did I come 
from? " She replied, " Why, you dropped through 
one of those pinholes in the sky," — pointing up to 
the stars. Doubtless her philosophy was as good 
as that of most of the " Myths of the Dawn." If it 
be true, I will try to credit the legend that the stork 
brought me from one of the lagoons of light which 



20 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



we sometimes see on the horizon when the sun is 
rising. I recall that Cicero somewhere says, " The 
souFs native seat is heaven; and it is with re- 
luctance that she is thrust down from those celestial 
mansions into these lower regions where all is for- 
eign and repugnant to her divine nature." I like 
Wordsworth : 

i i Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ; 
The Soul that rises with us, our life 's Star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
And cometh from afar : — 
Not in entire forgetfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From God, who is our home." 

With this encouragement from philosophers and 
poets I will brave the accusation of being over- 
mystical, and acknowledge that I have sometimes 
felt the pull of something super- or subter-mundane 
from out the unknown past. Some wave seems 
to have rolled against me from that great ocean 
which I forgot as soon as I drifted up into this little 
creek of time. For example, just before dropping 
to sleep at night, — or better, when slipping down 
the descent into my cat-nap after lunch, — or better 
still, when stretched upon some summer hillside 
with pictured infinity expanding around me — my 
spirit floats with seeming naturalness, a sort of at- 
home-ness, over its ordinary limits as easily as 
clouds coast over the mountains, and fogs unroll 



SOME PKELIMIN ABIES 21 



themselves on the sea. I can no more divest myself 
of this feeling than I can keep the doors and win- 
dows so tightly closed as to exclude the knowledge 
that my sense-world is larger than my house. 
Strange spiritual atmosphere comes in to me 
through all sorts of crack and cranny; sometimes 
most refreshing, exhilarating; sometimes soughing 
dismally, and making me afraid because I must 
some day make my exit into the great out-of-doors 
where all things are unknown. 

With Tennyson let us be patient until the mys- 
tery clears; — 

" When that which drew from out the boundless deep 
Turns again home. ,, 

Ancestral Ingredients. 

" One may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a 
lamb; "'so, having risked my philosophical repute 
in marauding thus far into the great border land, I 
may as well make a larger venture. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes says that a man's biog- 
raphy should begin a hundred and fifty years before 
his birth. A more materialistic notion, and one 
less agreeable to my conceit, is this, — I am nothing 
more than the resultant of all the forces that ever 
struggled through the blood and brains of my fore- 
bears from chimpanzee days ; a centesimum quid of 
the ingredients that were mixed in a hundred gen- 
erations, modifying or intensifying the peculiarities 
of their intelligence and ignorance, of their high 
philosophies and vagrant superstitions, their virtues 



22 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



and vices, their joys and griefs, their triumphs and 
despairs. My natal current must have been like a 
stream of molten metal, now running into this 
mould, now into that ; broken up again and thrown 
back into the furnace ; recast a thousand times, and 
finally poured into the matrix of my present phys- 
ical shape ; — good stuff or slag according as it has 
been well smelted in the brains and nerves of my 
multifarious progenitors, or has been spoiled by 
them and made fit only for the refuse heap. 

Some things in my experience incline me to this 
gruesome hypothesis. For example : 

I have often had occasion to notice that I am not 
a unit in character. Though I am conscious of not 
having attained the highest virtues, and am un- 
willing to confess to the lowest vices, yet I have 
never been able to make a straight line between 
good and evil, but have zigzagged like a thistle in 
the wind. My moral biography would be about as 
consistent as the leaves of Saint Augustine's Con- 
fessions and those of Rousseau if torn out of their 
respective volumes and rearranged by the " printer's 
devil." " When I would do good, then evil is present 
with me " ; now Saint George uppermost, and now 
the Dragon. 

To be frankly honest, as an ordinary man I can- 
not claim to have even persisted in a great purpose 
of morality, except when saying my prayers. At 
one moment I am quite saintly in my aspiration 
and determination. That must be because my 
grandmother, who from the wall yonder looks down 



SOME PRELIMINARIES 23 



upon me so serenely in the white cap that fits her 
like a halo, has bequeathed to me that sweet and 
holy quality of herself. At other moments I am 
indifferent to all impulses of sanctity, benumbed by 
trivial temptations no bigger than gnat-stings. 
This must be the work of some ancestor who was 
hanged, or ought to have been, back in the days 
when Robin Hood was the hero of Sherwood Forest. 

I find the same inconsistency and vacillation in 
my moods. Still-water or cascade? That depends 
upon what is at the bottom of the channel where my 
life current flows ; what these same forebears have 
left there where my conscious self runs babbling 
over my subconscious self. Yesterday I purred all 
day, happy in the fact that I was alive in God's 
beautiful world; to-morrow I will be depressed, 
querulous, seeing everything in blue tints, although 
there will be no change in my diet, my digestion, the 
state of the barometer or the market quotations, and 
not a smile will have fallen off the face of nature 
or the faces of my friends. This must be due to the 
Hivites and Jebusites who are still fighting in the 
Canaan I have come to possess. 

I may say the same thing regarding my opinions. 
I pride myself upon my independent judgment. I 
am as stubborn as a mule when any one tries to force 
my conviction by authoritative statements ; and the 
sweetest persuasions of logic and sentiment I can 
resist as a horse that doesn't want to be led to water. 
Yet at times I find myself lapsing into all sorts of 
prejudice, which my reason rejects and my taste 



24 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



abhors. I am convinced of Free Will, for I am at 
times furiously wilful; yet I am spasmodically a 
Fatalist. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Cal- 
vinism was so strong a strain in my forefathers' 
and f oremothers' blood. I am from deliberate prin- 
ciple a democrat, yet I like an occasional dictator ; 
possibly because my ancestors were Cromwellians. 
I am a Christian, but have my off moments of 
Paganism as dark as that of the Druids, who 
slaughtered their vicarious victims under the oaks 
where my great-great-great-grandmother when a 
child made acorn cups into necklaces. 

I have observed in testing these experiences that 
they are antagonistic, and I am not inclined to com- 
promise on any via media. I have taken my virtues 
and vices, my truths and follies, " straight," never 
" half an' half." I may have been saint or devil at 
times, but always at different times, and was never 
a saintly devil nor a devil of a saint. Stevenson 
need not have invented a drug to account for the 
transmutations of Jekyll and Hyde, since these two 
men, by some freak of nature, or in the hurry of 
souls to escape some spiritual thunder-shower, may 
have taken permanent lodging under the same skin. 
One is tempted to pray — especially on Sundays, 
when recalling the sins of the week, — " Lord, it was 
not I that did it, but that other fellow who shares 
my carnal apartment, and leaves his uncleanness 
about." 

I do not feel lonely in making this confession, for 
I am speaking of the ordinary man everywhere. I 



SOME PBELIMIN ABIES 25 



know of no one who is morally straight as a string, 
except when the string is in a heap. Human nature 
is a tangle of inconsistencies. 

You have read of Ali Pasha, the most murderous 
villain of modern times. He would cry like a girl 
when his pet bird broke its wings trying to escape 
from the cage. So sentimental was he that he 
begged the pardon of a rose when he wrenched it 
from its stalk to give it to one of his bloody mis- 
tresses. 

A poor crippled beggar would make Louis 
Napoleon's pocketbook weep gold; yet a passing 
regiment that he had hired to cut people's throats 
tickled him into a laugh like that of an idiot. 

William Penn would not harm an Indian to the 
extent of a wampum, but he delighted to watch the 
tortures of a malefactor in the hands of the execu- 
tioners. 

Kobespierre, called The Incorruptible, who 
burned with indignation at all social shams, was a 
conceited ass, and had his chamber lined with 
mirrors that he might constantly look upon the 
reflection of his own ungainly form. 

Why, that grandmother of mine, as sweet a soul 
as God ever put in frocks, used to tell me of her 
pastime as a little girl, when on a Friday she could 
go to the village green and see the culprits have 
their ears nailed to a board or their feet clamped 
in the stocks. 

Query : — Does the new-born, coming down through 
its ancestral veins, emerge into this world like a 



26 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



fresh mountain spring, or only ooze into it like sur- 
face drainage from a marsh? One thing is cer- 
tain ; — as we find no well filled with absolute H 2 0, 
but all its water is tinctured by the chemicals which 
it gathers in passing through the earth, so the soul 
shows traces of the various moral stuffs it has en- 
countered, some of which stuffs are as salubrious 
as that of healing fountains, some as tainted as that 
of the Dead Sea. 

The Divine Abyss. 

A more hopeful theory of human origin is sug- 
gested by some; — namely, that before we were in- 
carnated, even ancestrally, our spirits were parts 
of an infinite flood of intelligence and purity, which 
we call God; that all woeful traits have been con- 
tracted solely by contact with human blood; that, 
if we could only fathom deep enough this ocean 
of the Unknown, we should find all serene and 
salubrious. 

The ancient pagan Pythagoras said that the hu- 
man soul is a detached part of or emanation from 
the Universal Soul. Our modern pagan Renan 
calls us men " bubbles on the surface of existence, 
who feel a mysterious kinship with Our Father the 
Abyss." A man who has lost a genial faith, as 
Renan confessed he had done when he abandoned 
Christianity, is apt to be lugubrious and despair- 
ing ; while, on the other hand, one who is feeling his 
way toward faith, notwithstanding his many un- 
certainties, is apt to be cheerful and hopeful. The 



SOME PRELIMINARIES 27 



former is only a derelict; the latter is an explorer. 
There is a vast difference in the manhood of a tramp 
and that of a prospector. 

The clearer mind of Epictetus represented Zeus 
as saying to a mortal, " Thy body is not thine own, 
but only a finer mixture of clay, — but I have given 
thee a certain portion of myself." This ancient 
seems to have sounded that "Abyss " so deep that 
the lead found purer springs in which it was 
cleansed from the mud of its middle passage. 

Marcus Aurelius also felt the tide-beat of this 
theory. If he did not entertain clearly the idea of 
an infinite subconsciousness he explored upward 
and outward, feeling his way toward a universal 
super-consciousness. Hear him ! — " No longer let 
thy breathing act only in concert with the air which 
surrounds thee, but let thy intelligence also be in 
harmony with the Intelligence which embraces all 
things. For the Intelligent Power is no less dif- 
fused in all parts, and pervades all things for him 
who is willing to draw it to him, than the aerial 
power for him who is able to respire it." Perhaps 
this is akin to what Socrates meant when he spoke 
of the Daemon whose wordless voice he could hear 
whenever he silenced the babble of his less august 
thoughts. 

May we not then say that our individual human 
lives are in some sense parts of the Divine Life 
which comes into a diminutive, but no less real, 
consciousness in our immediate personalities? 
May not you and I be something like the divisions 



28 ALONG THE FEIENDLY WAY 



of the great sea into bays and creeks, all of which, 
except for the defilements from their own banks 
and channels, are kept pnre and lif ef ul by the same 
mighty tides that are the pulse-beats of the ocean? 
Surely, as Saint Paul says, " In Him we all live, 
and move, and have our being : " only the Adamic 
inlets soiling the flow of the Blessed Spirit. May I 
think of Christ as a great billow from the Infinite 
Blessedness that beats on the bar of every man's 
existence, and, by the flooding of His divine and 
human consciousness, assures us men that we also 
are divine? 

If indeed I am only a " bubble on the surface of 
existence," since that Abyss is the infinitude of 
God in His goodness, I shall be content some day 
to break through the thin filament, however opales- 
cent it may be with present life gladness and con- 
ceits, and to sink within the Eternal Bosom. 

Not Fully Arrived. 

So I will change the family record in the old 
Bible, and read, not that I was born, but that I — 
arrived. 

I wonder, however, if I arrived in this world in 
my entirety. Is all of me now really encased in 
this body? A philosopher who lived just after the 
Dark Ages, and owl-like was blinking with the day- 
light of modern inquiry, taught that the soul ex- 
tends in about a three-foot radius from the spinal 
column; and that, if we had soul-eyes, we should 
appear to one another like elongated ghostly 



SOME PRELIMINARIES 29 



balloons ballasted down to the earth by the weight 
of our bodies. The theory is saved from being 
ridiculous by the recent discovery of De Rochas 
that we may have sensation of things two feet be- 
yond our skins. But the theory, if not unscientific, 
is belittling. I know I am bigger than that. At 
this moment I can with my soul-eyes, without chang- 
ing my posture, overlap my library table and by 
memory reread many delightful sayings in the 
books on the shelves yonder. I can, without even 
opening the window, expand myself over the hills, 
greet distant friends, or look on familiar scenes be- 
yond the seas. Of course, you will call this only 
imaginary inflation. But to me it is more real, in 
the sense that it makes more impression upon me, 
than anything else within the range of mere sight 
and touch. 

Sir Oliver Lodge queers me with some of his 
psychological hypotheses; but there is at least 
sanity in this : — " The whole of us may not be in- 
carnated in our present selves. What the rest of 
me may be doing for these years while I am here, I 
do not know ; perhaps it is asleep." Let me add, I 
am then like a traveller from a far country who 
has arrived at his destination with a hand-bag con- 
taining only scant clothing and soiled, with a little 
loose money in his purse, but whose larger luggage 
has been detained somewhere en route, and his 
letters-of -credit not yet forwarded. Or possibly I 
resemble one of those unfortunates who, in tem- 
porary mental aberration, has wandered away from 



30 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



home, forgotten his name, family and estate, fancies 
himself to be only a tramp, contented with what 
he earns in little jobs or gets in the doles of way- 
side charity. Will I ever come to my full self? Or 
rather, will my full self ever catch up with its 
advanced guard? 

This theory suggests an interpretation of certain 
strange sensations I sometimes have ; they are as if 
I felt the dragging cords of being which are not yet 
fully coiled within my present dimensions ; a part of 
that mysterious substance I call " Myself " that is 
still trailing through the vasty expanse. Perhaps 
the filmy skirts of my essence have caught on the 
points of some star, or on the horns of the moon. 

I must, then, no longer despise the astrologers; 
for may not my destiny be somewhat controlled by 
what is left up yonder? It may be that what we 
deride as the superstition of some German parishes 
is only a mark of the precocity of the dwellers in 
that land of Kultur. At the birth of a child they 
still are accustomed, as in the Middle Ages, to take 
his horoscope, file it in connection with his bap- 
tismal certificate, and keep a copy for ready refer- 
ence in the family chest. Goethe thus tells us of 
his arrival on the beach of time ;— " My horoscope 
was propitious; the sun stood in the sign of the 
Virgin, and had culminated for the day; Jupiter 
and Venus looked on me with a friendly eye, and 
Mercury not adversely," etc. 

If some of Me — the delayed baggage of my 
spiritual faculties — is still within the precincts of 



SOME PRELIMINARIES 31 



a brighter world, this will account for certain 
religious predispositions that hold me fast in spite 
of very strong eccentric impulses to fly away from 
the Creed : and also for a brightness that constantly 
glimmers through the misty damps of present world 
experiences and keeps me vaguely hopeful. 

I can feel that check for my delayed spiritual 
baggage, as it were, in my pocket, though I can't 
read just what it says. I will keep the check, for 
perhaps all my belongings will be delivered at the 
next station of existence. I will emulate the pa- 
tience of Job, who, in just such an embarrassing 
dilemma, said, "All the days of my appointed time 
will I wait, till my change come." 

Vicarious Motherhood. 

The coasts of this life are girt with dangers. 
There is no safe landing-place for a stranger from 
the Beyond. We make the shore, if at all, only 
through heavy surfs in which vast multitudes 
perish. Indeed, the majority of mankind never 
take the first step upon the new-found land, but 
slip back into the Abyss. The advance of obstetrical 
science has buoyed some channels, but children's 
bones encircle the shores of life, as the reefs made 
by dead coral insects girdle the islands of the 
Caribbean Sea. If you have made the landing 
and have no higher faith you should imitate the 
ancients who hung up their garments in the temple 
of Neptune. Or Clotho, the Fate that holds the dis- 
taff and begins to spin the cord of life, should have 



32 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



an offering for not letting Atropos prematurely clip 
it off. 

I escaped those breakers; but narrowly. I have 
been told that I survived only after a series of 
resuscitations, " first helps/' practised upon me by 
those who watched my coming. 

My arrival was perilous not only to myself ; it had 
a most tragic attendant. I bow my head as I write 
these words, overcome by the dark mystery of it 
all ; — a mystery of suffering, of sacrifice, to which I 
would not refer were it not also so common. My 
entrance into life was my mother's exit from it. 
Her life and mine were " ships that passed in the 
night." 

Thus I was ushered into the world by no " fairy 
godmother" with dancing feet and starry eyes; 
but by a sombre-robed angel with sorrowing face, — 
a face, as it seems to me, shadowed by the Cross; 
for Maternity and Calvary are the symbols of the 
law of vicarious sacrifice which underlies all human 
progress. 

The ordinary problem of death does not trouble 
me. Indeed, I can readily discern the wisdom of 
the Creator in keeping human life — like that of the 
flowers and forests — fresh by incessant renewals. 
We soon grow too old, too decrepit, too rutted in 
our habits, too prejudiced by our past opinions, in 
every way too " slow of heart " to be of service in a 
progressive world. Let the crinkled leaves be 
crowded off by the swelling buds ! But vicarious, 
that is, willing, self -extinction by one for the sake 



SOME PRELIMINARIES 33 



of another is a different thing. In it the best and 
the bravest yield up the joys of existence for the 
sake of those who, it may be, are utterly unworthy 
of them. That is the tragic Promethean fact that 
no philosophy can interpret. 

Yet sometimes there comes a ray through the 
darkness. It is where the suffering has been 
prompted by the intense love that makes the sacri- 
fice even joyful. In such case the surrendering 
soul emerges victor, not vanquished, because it 
yields to an authority greater, nobler, holier than 
any natural right to live. 

I have been told that my mother, when she sur- 
mised from the face of the physician that her life 
and that of her child could not both be saved, 
begged him to spare the child. Indeed, though the 
physician did not intentionally heed her request, 
he yet declared that but for her relinquishment of 
the will to live the result would have been different. 
Yet she had everything to live for. She was still 
young, beautiful, beloved of everybody, with tastes 
and means to drink deep the sweets of the most 
cultured life. These she gave up that another 
being, one whom she did not know, might have the 
chance of plucking some of the flowers of this 
world. 

Was it altogether self-sacrifice? Though un- 
known to her, that babe was a part of herself; a 
part of her physical being, knit to her by cords of 
nerve; a part of her soul being too, for she had 
enwrapped it within her own spirit, knit it to her 



34 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



by cords of love and solicitude and prayer, and 
imparted to it somewhat of her own spirit essence. 

I lift the inquiry higher : — Was not this true of 
the intimate relation in which the Christ stood to 
humanity? Were not men and women and children 
His very own? Was it not predicted of Him that 
He should " see of the travail of His soul and be 
satisfied" even in dying that others might live? 
Is not God more than a Father in Heaven? Is He 
not also the great Mother-heart of the sentient 
universe? Perhaps there is a truth that lies some- 
where back of Mariolatry. The form of that dogma 
may be as fanciful as the clouds that veil the sun- 
set ; but the sun gilds the clouds. The mother-love 
of God is a fact. Alas, that it needs a human 
mother-love to make us think of it ! 

My Invisible Guide. 

I am not a spiritualist, nor do I worship the 
saints. But as I look back over my long life and 
recall my many waywardnesses, any one of which if 
persisted in would have been my ruin, and when I 
think of how gently I have been turned back to a 
better course, I wonder if my mother has not guided 
me, even as she would have done had she lived. 
"Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to 
minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation? " 
Where do the blessed ones minister to men still on 
earth if not in the places to which their interest 
attracts them, and to the lives that were once — and 
doubtless are still — as dear to them as their own? 



SOME PKELIMINAKIES 35 



If this life is a preparation for continued life and 
service beyond, what preparation can match that of 
a mother's solicitude and love and sacrifice for her 
children? 

So all through these many years of mine I have 
seldom thanked God for His mercies without thank- 
ing Him for my mother. And I am sure that He 
will forgive me if I often think of her when I pray 
for His guidance, — as Tennyson thought of his 
vanished comrade, — 

' ' Be with me now, 
And enter in at breast and brow, 
Till all my blood, a fuller wave, 
Be quickened with a livelier breath.' ' 

Some object to the Biblical precept, " Love God 
with all thine heart," alleging that it is impossible 
to love one whom we have not seen ; that our affec- 
tions need the accessories of face and form, of voice 
and manner, — a sort of trellis-work upon which 
our hearts climb to an appreciation of their object. 
A ritualistic friend argues similarly for the neces- 
sity of images of the Christ, since love cannot grow 
its tendrils about the purely ideal, but needs the 
concrete to cling to. 

I am sure that the argument is not valid. I never 
saw my mother. I do not possess even a fair pic- 
ture of her. She passed away before the days of 
photography. An artist had been engaged to paint 
her portrait. One day he made a hasty profile 
sketch with a pencil as a preliminary study; but 



36 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



before lie began bis real work she was gone. A 
critic observes tbat "the secret quality of a face 
is apt to slip out somehow from under the cun- 
ningest painter's touch, and leave the portrait dead 
for lack of it." Did our artist catch with his lead 
pencil the "secret quality" of my mother's face? 
Presumably not. Yet that piece of paper is my 
only suggestion of her features. 

But it has always been a most precious heirloom. 
I look at it, and in imagination try to recast the 
features so as to express my ideal of her character ; 
to put back of the lines an adorable something that 
my love creates. But I cannot succeed. My 
mother is only an ideal to me. When as a child I 
visited my neighborhood playmates I would watch 
their mothers, and wonder if mine were anything 
like theirs; then go back to my home and cry be- 
cause I could not see her whom I loved as truly 
as they loved theirs. Indeed, I believe that the 
unformed image in my mind was more winsome 
to me than the visual presence was to them. 

We have never seen God. There is no verified 
picture of Christ. But surely David was honest 
and not merely making a Prayer Book when he 
wrote, "Whom have I in Heaven but Thee; and 
there is none upon earth that I desire beside 
Thee." And Peter rightly described hosts of 
Christians when he told of Jesus " Whom, not hav- 
ing seen, ye love." 



II 

EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS 

Memory or Imagination? 

IN my long backward look I find that the mind 
lingers most fondly over the events of early 
childhood. These recollections are also the 
most vivid. It may be that persons who have had 
extraordinary careers, who have heaved big events 
or been crushed by heavy sacrifices, recall those 
things most prominently. But one like myself, in 
whose life-stream there have been no Niagaras, will 
be apt to think most naturally of the springs in the 
distant hills, the early confluents where the waters 
of companionship first mingled, the stretches of 
still-water mirrored with the cloud-land of childish 
fancies, the overarching forests out of which leaped 
upon him his first terrors, and the little valleys 
which gave direction to his after career. 

Perhaps there is a psychological explanation of 
our clearer remembrance of early events. To 
fasten things in recollection we must look at them 
long enough to fix our attention. The mnemonic 
acid must cut in. The attention of children is 
forced by the novelty of what passes. How the 
first track of the skate on virgin ice stands out ! I 
can see it now after seventy summers have melted 

37 



38 ALONG THE FEIENDLY WAY 



it away. The first clap of thunder startles us, 
while the thousand subsequent strokes of Thor's 
hammer lose their distinctness in the prolonged 
roar of the storm. 

The impressions of childhood are apt to repeat 
themselves in the impressions of after life. They 
become, as it were, fundamental draught-lines 
which we unconsciously follow in later thinking. 
Ruskin noted that Turner's great Alpine peaks 
showed in their contour and color a suggestion of 
the Yorkshire Hills amid whose minor beauties he 
learned to paint. A biographer of Tennyson, ex- 
plaining the unabated freshness of the poet's senti- 
ments and imagery, attributes them to his early ex- 
periences as an observer of nature and a connoisseur 
of men and things, — the shapes of his impressions 
having been so simple and decided that they never 
changed. " First emotions are life emotions ; how- 
ever the current flows, the source is the same." 

There may also be a physical explanation of the 
vividness with which we retain the impression of 
our first things. A difficulty which beset the in- 
ventor of the phonographic disk was to find a sub- 
stance which would most readily record the tiny 
sound-waves, and, at the same time, most securely 
retain the almost infinitesimal indentations they 
made. The inventor of the human brain had a 
similar problem. Everything we notice records 
itself, shall we say by a scratch, an indentation, 
producing some molecular change in the cellular 
tissue. The child's brain is marvellously quick to 



EAELIEST EECOLLECTIONS 39 



take, and as marvellously endowed to retain, the 
impress of whatever touches it. 

On the other hand, in old age the brain seems 
to have become too hard to receive the impression 
of ordinary things. Hence the commonly noticed 
failure of the aged to recall recent occurrences, 
though they are apt to be full of reminiscence of 
earlier happenings. My father, when he passed 
into his nineties, became unreliable in respect to 
current engagements. He could read for the third 
time a story without finding anything to remind 
him that he had travelled over the same pages be- 
fore. But start him to repeat the thread of an 
old-time romance, to argufy the politics of Andrew 
Jackson or Henry Clay, to describe the costumes 
prevailing in the transition period between knee- 
buckles and blue swallow-tails with brass buttons, 
it was like reading from the age-yellowed pages of a 
newspaper of those days. 

There is a dispute among writers as to the earliest 
age when the brain is sufficiently hardened to make 
passing impressions into permanent recollections. 
John Stuart Mill declared that he couldn't remem- 
ber when he couldn't read Greek. He was not " an 
ordinary man," but one of those prodigies that do 
not concern any philosophy we may indulge in in 
this memoir. After questioning many lads and 
lasses, and also cross-examining some of my vener- 
able friends in their at least twice-told tales, I 
incline to Jean Paul Kichter's opinion, — " There 
are in men, in the beginning and at the end, as in 



40 ALONG THE FEIENDLY "WAY 



books, two blank bookbinders' leaves — childhood 
and old age." 

We do not ordinarily recall things that occurred 
before our third year. Yet we sometimes think we 
do. An experience of my own perplexes me. 

On my brain film is a very vivid picture of a 
scene enacted when I was still a creeper. My 
playroom was on the second floor. How vividly I 
can see it now: the big rocker, the tiny crib, the 
green Venetian window blind ! My nurse had put 
me on the window seat which reached to within a 
few inches of the sill. Over this sill I leaned until 
I lost my balance, rolled down the sloping roof of 
the piazza, and lodged in the broad trough of the 
gutter. Looking over the edge of this I saw the 
bright flowers of a rose-bush some ten feet below. 
With the perversity that has followed me through 
life, I tried to tumble down to them. The nurse's 
screams delighted me. Knowing that I was beyond 
her reach, I experienced my first thrill of personal 
liberty, which thrill was lessened neither by the 
narrow limitation of the gutter, nor by any fear of 
the unknown depth below me. I was not unlike 
certain anarchists who are so enamored of their 
independence that they are willing to roll into 
social perdition. I can to this day see the broad 
face of my Irish nurse, its prevailing red turned 
white with fright. I can recall her exact pose as 
she thrust her broad hips through the window 
opening. I have seen her a thousand times as she 
tried to crawl down to me, and rejoiced as often 



EAELIEST KECOLLECTIONS 41 



with the recollection of how the slanting roof 
pitched her upon her nose, lessening by at least a 
skin's thickness the size of that member, which 
nature had already sufficiently curtailed to meet 
the most approved type of Hibernian beauty. She 
persisted in elongating herself until her fingers 
gripped my clothes. There she lay panting out her 
exhausted energy, until my father opportunely ap- 
peared upon the scene, grasped her by the feet, and 
drew us both to safety. 

Now all this I could swear that I distinctly 
remember, were it not for a psychological difficulty. 
At that early age I could not have had a sufficiently 
developed sense of the ludicrous to appreciate the 
scene ; yet the ludicrous element is its chief feature 
in my recollection. I must honestly account for 
my seeming precocity by the fact that I have often 
heard my father and others tell that story of my 
first misadventure. My imagination, excited by the 
picturesque adornments of the tale, became reality ; 
just as in process engraving shadow pictures are 
cut into the plate. 

I will not apologize for my childish illusion, 
since some of my most veracious friends, who have 
long since reached years of discretion, occasionally 
relate as their personal adventures things that my 
grandfather would claim to belong to his diary, 
recorded, alas! before the days of copyright. We 
all of us at times confound our memories with our 
imaginations, just as stereopticon lecturers mix 
their plates. 



42 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



The late Lawrence Hutton told of a dinner he 
attended in London, at which James Bus sell Lowell 
made a speech whose very words Hutton could 
repeat. " Yet," adds Hutton, " I am assured that 
it never happened at all. I can find no one who 
ever heard of such a dinner." Carl Schurz fre- 
quently told of the immense impression made upon 
him at a Cabinet meeting by Mr. Lincoln's vivid 
description of the Monitors fight in Hampton 
Roads. But he afterwards wrote, — "A careful 
scrutiny of the circumstances convinced me at last 
that I was not at the White House that day. This 
is one of the cases which have made me very anxious 
to verify my memory by all attainable outside 
evidence." 

I wonder — to compare little things with great — if 
errors similar to my early " recollections " may not 
have occurred in connection with some of the an- 
cient traditions of the race. Even Herodotus, 
reverenced as the Father of History, runs the risk 
of being called the Father of Lies in narrating as 
his j>ersonal observation many things that certainly 
belonged to earlier legends, which legends them- 
selves are now known to have been fables. Possi- 
bly some of the " eye-witnesses " of more sacred 
events have, all unconsciously, colored their actual 
visions with the popular beliefs or current interpre- 
tations of the facts, and have thus given us upon 
their saintly authority that which would not now 
pass the test of real historical verity. 

Over the human mind there has always rested a 



"EARLIEST EECOLLECTIOKS 43 



mirage-making atmosphere that brings remote 
things near, and is apt to transform arrant fancies 
into visnal realities. The Crusaders, while still on 
the far distant Rhine hills, declared that they saw 
Jerusalem, even its walls and temple. English 
soldiers have sworn that in a recent battle in Bel- 
gium Saint George appeared in shining armor to 
encourage them. Indeed, the legend of Saint 
George's adventure seems to have been a mere re- 
vival of the olden Scandinavian story of Siegfried 
slaying a similar monster. 

It has generally happened with the visions of the 
saints, especially of Mary and Christ, that they 
were reproductions of the pictures in the churches 
with which the ignorant visionaries were familiar. 
We may thus account for the many Descents into 
Hell recorded by our ancestors in such books as 
those of Eoger of Hovenden and Matthew of Paris. 
Though Benvenuto Cellini was a most artistic liar 
in some respects, we need not think of him as delib- 
erately prevaricating in his account of the appari- 
tion of Jesus in his cell in San Angelo. Such 
sights were undoubtedly real experiences in the 
souls of the observers; but so also the clouds and 
tree-tops seen in pools make actual pictures on the 
retina though they are not really down there in the 
water. The sources of the experience can be ques- 
tioned without disparaging the honesty of the nar- 
rators. Sincerity is not a test of truth. 



44 ALONG THE FftlENDLY WAY 



Children's Lies. 

A noted preacher once said that all children are 
born liars. This is a Calvinistic slander, unless by 
a lie is meant everything that does not agree with 
outward fact, however innocent the utterer may be 
of any intention to deceive. With that unscientific 
and immoral definition, I must confess to have been 
a liar from infancy to at least adult years; for I 
have told stories, and stuck to them in spite of dis- 
cipline, which astound me in the recollection. 

A child, unless he is a dullard, is a natural ro- 
mancer. This is due to the fact that his mind is 
more active than his senses, so that his outward 
knowledge fails to supply with actual facts his 
inner inventiveness. In after life there is a nearer 
balance between mental and sense perception. In- 
deed, in many cases the man becomes so engrossed 
in merely outward things that his imaginative fac- 
ulty is partly atrophied from disuse. But in child- 
hood it is the reverse. Limited actual observation 
of the world fails to satisfy the inner craving for 
excitement. The grain of fact runs out, so that the 
child pours into his mental hopper the grist of mere 
fancy. 

In my short-clothes days we had not many picture 
books in the nursery, so we made our own pictures 
as we could. They were of such things as were 
never seen on earth nor in the waters under the 
earth. There was then little scientific " milk for 
babes," in the form of revelations of the wonders of 
the physical creation. The dinosaurians had not 



EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS 45 



yet crept up from their geological habitats and 
sprawled themselves over the pages of school-books. 
But we invented their rivals. 

One night, after too much raisin cake for supper, 
I peopled the darkness with all sorts of fantastic 
shapes, which, as I now recall them, were quite 
Dantesque. One creature had the body of an enor- 
mous serpent, the claws of a cat and the bill of a 
bird. This latter function was armed with a row 
of teeth that would have been the envy of any bully 
of the primeval jungle. Of course, I made myself 
slay the monster. But the tussle was tremendous 
and agonizing. No doubt the pillows and coverlets 
would have shown how I wriggled away from the 
crunch of the monster ; how I caught and held from 
me his great claws; how I fastened his jaws wide 
open with my dagger just at the moment they were 
about to snap me into two. I have never had a more 
realistic experience. As I tell the story I feel again 
the fright that almost paralyzed me as I grappled 
with the fearsome object, the chill and heat that 
alternately coursed up and down my spinal column 
during the conflict, and the enthusiasm of the vic- 
tory. 

The next day I told the story to my brothers. A 
governess overhearing it was doubtless horrified 
with the conviction that she had in training a child 
of the devil who had spent the night with infernal 
playmates. She reported the matter to my father, 
to whom I insisted that I was telling only the truth. 
Upon which, he being more orthodox than psycho- 



46 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



logic, advised me to paint on my imagination a 
place of fire and brimstone as something likely to be 
real in my future experience. 

But what is reality? Simply what one realizes. 
A thought that sways me, a fantasy that carries me 
away, a mere dream, if you will, is more real to me 
than a cyclone through which I have slept soundly. 
The material part of a sunset is only dust and mist 
particles, but the glory of it is an immensely greater 
fact, for all that it is assayed only in my sentiment. 
Surely beauty, grandeur, sublimity, are as real as 
the mountains or the sea on which they are painted 
with the brush of my aesthetic feeling. Science is a 
reality ; yet it is not an outstanding series of facts ; 
only our conception of an order in the universe that 
may have no more truth back of it than the ancient 
cosmogonies that have floated away like other mists 
of the early morn. Thales was not the less a philos- 
opher and less worthy of his title of Father of 
Science because his four elements, earth, air, fire 
and water, were not elements at all. Let us be just 
to those who encircled the world with the river 
Oceanus as a watery horizon ; who saw through the 
phosphorescent waves the gleaming trident of Nep- 
tune commanding the seas ; who turned their prows 
in fright from the cave where iEolus kept the tem- 
pests ; who read the entrails of beasts as the hiero- 
glyphic prophecies of future events, and followed 
the wandering of Ulysses among the isles of Calypso 
and Circe, and over the pasture lands of the sun, as 
credulously as we follow Stanley among the pigmy 



EAELIEST KECOLLECTIONS 47 



tribes of Africa or Nansen among the floating 
islands that girt the North Pole. Homer, Hesiod 
and Ovid, the authors of the Babylonian and He- 
brew stories of creation, Virgil, Milton and Dante, 
and the singers of the Sagas of the Northland were 
only the dreamers of the race during its childhood 
or adolescence, yet what they told became the deter- 
minative forces of much of human history. 

We are now critically examining the old Bible 
records with the purpose to reject whatever cannot 
demonstrate its literal exactness. Criticism should 
be careful lest in its iconoclastic zeal it destroy 
genuine and important history, namely, that of the 
convictions — dreams, if you will — of the men who 
once lived under the spell of ancient oracles. We 
shall thus lose more of value than we shall gain if 
we succeed in melting the seals off all apocryphal 
scripture. Our very superstitions belong to the his- 
tory of truth ; they are essential to the biography of 
humanity and cannot be omitted without detriment 
to the fidelity of the record. 

A Young Anarchist. 

That I did not grow up to become an anarchist 
was not due to my first school-teacher. She was a 
lovely woman, soft-eyed, soft-cheeked, soft-handed, 
soft-spoken, all because she was a soft-hearted crea- 
ture. She was a rigid disciplinarian, according to 
her code, but not in administration. She was per- 
petually inflicting punishments that didn't punish. 
When she scolded, which she thought she was doing 



48 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



vehemently, she was like Bottom as the lion, who 
would " roar you as gently as any sucking dove." 

I had done something wrong, and was made to 
hold out my hand for the due reward of my deeds. 
A tiny whip of the size of a broomwisp and the 
weight of a shoe-string fell thrice upon my flesh. I 
was disappointed. I thought a whipping was of 
more consequence than that. I felt that my teacher 
hadn't credited me with pluck. She ought at least 
to have made me wince, stiffen my lips, and grind 
my heel on the floor. I was underrated, insulted, 
and that in the presence of another little fellow who 
thought he had licked me the day before. 

I watched my chance to merit a heavier punish- 
ment, something one could feel, and be willing to 
talk about afterward if only he didn't cry. I per- 
petrated some awful, horrible, atrocious bit of 
naughtiness — the adjectives describe my purpose, 
not the deed, although I have forgotten what it was. 
Reformation through corporal punishment having 
so signally failed in my case, the mistress endeav- 
ored to shame me out of my wickedness. She 
threatened to make me sit in the next room with 
the girls. Through the open door I caught a loving 
glance from one of the little misses who happened 
to live next door to me, and of whom I was very 
fond. That glance was, as in more classic instances, 
my undoing. I at once repeated my crime, and had 
a delightful half -hour holding the hand of my in- 
amorata under the fold of her frock. 

I was at that time laying the foundation for my 



EAKLIEST KECOLLECTIONS 49 



ideas of government. The " powers that be," such 
as Kings, Policemen, Generals and Schoolma'ams, 
it seemed to me were ordained only to break the 
monotony of other people's lives by providing them 
with new sensations — the first plank in the plat- 
form of my political economy. 

I was encouraged by my experience to pursue 
further the investigation of this great problem. I 
committed another offense. Now I was to be vis- 
ited with the utmost severity, put through the final 
degree, until my soul should be racked into submis- 
sion. 

I was shut up in the dark closet! Had I ever 
heard of the saying I should have expected to read 
over that dungeon portal, " Abandon hope ye that 
enter here." I anticipated the solitude of ear-split- 
ting silence ; but the cheerful voice of a darkey 
mammy singing in the adjacent kitchen prevented 
that catastrophe. I set out to explore with my 
hands my unknown environs. What awful recesses, 
deep caverns, ghostly bats and unimaginable things 
ought to be in the dark closet ! Suddenly my fin- 
gers slipped into something soft. I smelt the stuff. 
Goody! Pumpkin-pie! I was incarcerated in the 
pantry ! Never was a mouse happier. I did not ask 
to see. Touch, smell, taste, were all the senses I 
needed. I only feared that the mistress would re- 
lent of her cruelty to me before I had scraped the 
bottom crust. 

I served my time in the pantry cell, and was led 
out into liberty. My sleeve, with which I had 



50 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



wiped my mouth, presented the annals of a solitary 
confinement with which the story of Silvio Pellico 
in the Spielburg and that of Picciola and his flower 
do not compare. But the eyes of my teacher were 
so full of tears over my sufferings that she didn't 
notice the sleeve. 

This method of imparting to a youngster proper 
ideas of Law and Order, due respect for Authority, 
and a wholesome realization that " the way of the 
transgressor is hard," might do for the training of 
rabbits, but not for young hyenas and foxes, to 
which ancestral races most of us humans seem to 
belong. That school might have been preparatory 
to an after course in the university of BlackwelFs 
Island. 

In spite of modern theories, and judging from 
my own case, a better discipline would have been a 
series of sound spankings laid on by a masculine 
hand ; thus imparting intelligence and discipline by 
what the scientists would call the Process of Induc- 
tion, or which the metaphysicians would, perhaps, 
regard as a practical application of the a posteriori 
method. 

First Physical Pain. 

John Morley quotes approvingly the words of 
George Meredith, "We lose a proper sense of the 
richness of life, if we do not look back on the scenes 
of our youth with imaginative warmth." One of my 
recollections does not lack the sensation of warmth. 
I was scarcely able to run when that exploit 



EAELIEST KECOLLECTKXNS 51 



brought me to my first experience of bodily suffer- 
ing. Since then I have felt most of the screws on 
the rack of torture, from toothache to gout ; but the 
terror of such agonies has been somewhat mitigated 
by the memory of primitive discipline. 

It was before the general introduction of butlers' 
pantry sinks piped for hot water ; at least such an 
Etnean supply had not yet been put into our house. 
The kitchen goddess was accustomed to bring into 
the dining-room an immense caldron of boiling 
water in which the dishes were washed before being 
ornamentally disposed on the shelf. Unfortunately 
I encountered the maid as she was bearing this port- 
able lavatory through a narrow passage, with the 
result that several gallons of the steaming fluid del- 
uged me. A great scar on my neck is a fragmentary 
memorial of the accident ; but I do not have to look 
at that to revive the remembrance of the agony of 
forty days. It helps me to a degree of equanimity in 
keeping a promise I recently made to an Italian 
priest that I would read a little book he had given 
me as a warning against my heretical tendencies. 
It was Saint Alfonso Maria de Liguori's Medita- 
tions, one chapter of which is entitled Delia Fine, 
and describes purgatorial " fire in the eyes, fire in 
the mouth, fire everywhere." During my lifetime I 
have had a delight in the smell of castor oil and 
lime-water, the mixture that solaced my pains dur- 
ing those dreary weeks when I lay like a snake in 
his den literally casting my old skin and taking on a 
new one. That early experience has undoubtedly 



52 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



made me more heroic as I have often been metaphor- 
ically in hot water since. 

First Contact With Greatness. 

The residence of General Winfield Scott was not 
far from our home. I had never as yet looked upon 
the renowned warrior, but my faculty of apprecia- 
tion was stunned by the reports of his deeds. He 
had taken "with his arms" the city of Mexico. 
What tremendous arms he must have! When my 
father read at morning prayers how a king of Baby- 
lon had " carried away all Jerusalem," I wondered 
if he or Scott were the bigger. I knew about Gul- 
liver and also about the giant that J ack killed, and 
was prepared to expect some tremendous vision 
when the General should arrive home from the war. 
I was disappointed when I saw him. To be sure he 
was a big man, made broader by the epaulettes that 
parapeted his shoulders, and taller by his cocked 
hat and feathers ; and the fanfare of trumpets and 
drums that played " Lo, the Conquering Hero 
Comes " seemed to blow him up to greater dimen- 
sions. But he was really no bigger than the giant I 
had seen at Barnum's. 

I imagined that there must be some terrible 
power condensed somewhere in his body. Maybe he 
would explode at times as gunpowder does. So 
while the General was passing in the procession I 
kept behind my slightly bigger brother for safety. 
As there was no explosion beyond the outcries of 
the crowd I felt that greatness was a cheat, 



EAELIEST EECOLLECTIONS 53 



A few days later my brother and I were chasing 
our ball in front of the General's house. By chance 
the ball rolled through the hedge into the demesne 
of the terrible man. What should we do? My 
brother was as daring as I was impudent, so he 
yielded to my urging, summoned all his courage 
into his spine, and crawled through the hedge. Hor- 
ror of horrors ! The colossus himself was sitting in 
a garden chair close to the hedge. He seized my 
brother by the waistband of his breeches, and lifted 
him over the hedge to the sidewalk. "My lad," 
said he, " you shouldn't bombard a man in his own 
castle. Suppose your ball had been a cannon-ball 
and had struck me ! " 

While I breathed more freely since no terrible 
thing had happened, I felt a sort of contempt for 
Great Scott. If the mighty man had only crushed 
a bone or two in my brother's body, or flung the in- 
truder over the top of the house, it would have 
been in keeping with my ideal of greatness. But, 
think of it! He had only broken the waistband of 
his breeches ! My awe was punctured. Some day I 
would pepper the General with my bean-thrower. 

My brother had his revenge. A day or two after 
the General stopped us little tots on the street. 

" See here, my lad ! Aren't you the boy that in- 
vaded my lawn? " 

How my muscles stiffened ! The General laughed 
heartily, and patting my brother on the head, said 
kindly, " You must be more cautious next time, and 
not have so many pins stuck in your belly band." 



54 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



What is greatness? The question thus started in 
my mind has never yet been satisfactorily answered, 
and few biographies help toward the solution. 

First Lesson in Patriotism. 

I was perhaps six years old when I received the 
first impression that I was living in a world of an- 
tagonisms. Everything external had heretofore 
gone smoothly. Everybody chucked me under the 
chin. I hadn't yet read about Blue Beard, and 
wouldn't have believed in the existence of such a 
monster if I had known the story. But suddenly I 
was made to realize that society is divided into fac- 
tions ; that nations are like diverse species of wild 
beasts, snarling and snapping at one another for 
possession of the bones of self-interest. As in a 
spasm, my puny soul muscles suddenly became 
knotted for conflict. 

The change came about in this way. My old 
grandmother had come to visit us. She had a won- 
derful face, full of kindness, eloquent with wrin- 
kles, framed in a big white cap that, like a nimbus 
of light, covered her head to the chin. She was a 
splendid story-teller. Nearing her own second 
childhood she had that leisurely garrulous style 
that so pleases first childhood. While she was in 
our house fairies seemed to look into the windows at 
night, and the chimney swallows twittered like baby 
angels back of the fire-board. She talked about 
birds and bunnies, about good children and loving 
mammas, until one would imagine the whole world 



EAKLIEST RECOLLECTIONS 55 



a harmless Paradise where there was not even a 
garter-snake or a wart-toad to harm us. 

But one afternoon she took me to the top of the 
house, and helped me climb a tall chair. She bade 
me look far away to a white gleam of water. 

" That's it," said she. 

For a long time she gazed. I thought she had 
forgotten me. 

" What is it you see, grandma? " 

" Why, that is the Sound off yonder. I wanted to 
see it once more before I died. When I was a wee 
little girl, about as big as you are now, I one day 
walked with my father from way back in the coun- 
try to the shore to get a sight of the old British 
prison ship Jersey. My uncle was confined and 
tortured on that horrible vessel for months during 
the Revolutionary War." 

I can never forget that hour, as I stood on the 
high chair, grinding my elbows against the win- 
dow-sill, with my eyes strained toward a spot in 
the direful distance, and listened to what she told 
me of the trying days of her girlhood; of her 
father's property ruined, her relatives killed ; of how 

John got his wooden leg, and Peter 

lost his eyes in battle and went all the rest of his 
life totally blind. When 1 went to bed that night I 
could not sleep, but rehearsed all the pictures she 
had painted, deepening in my imagination the 
blood-red colors, and twisting into worse contor- 
tions the writhing horrors of the battle-field. I have 
since seen thousands of the wounded, and, as I 



56 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



write there lie before me the morning journals with 
casualty statistics from the bloodiest war-field of all 
history ; but my grandmother's story cut deeper into 
my heart, because it was my first impression of the 
age-long story of " man's inhumanity to man." I 
can now, after all these years, when I am as old as 
she was then, still feel the touch of the old lady's 
hand on my head, and hear her voice as she bade me 
never forget what it cost to make our country. 
Hundreds of times since I have seen that prison 
ship floating in the lagoons of light on the horizon, 
and have watched the clouds sailing in like the 
navies of invaders. Some of the iron of that grand 
Eevolutionary soul must have gotten into my blood, 
and, rusting there, produced a sort of chronic patri- 
otic irritability. That day I became a citizen, 
rather than fifteen years later when I passed my 
majority and cast my first vote. 

First Flare of the Grand Flame. 

I was about six years old when my heart burst 
with that spontaneous combustion called Love. The 
warmth of the flame was so congenial that, twenty 
years later, when I was consumed with a greater 
fire of the same sort, I thought at least smilingly of 
the earlier experience. 

She was a beautiful child; — so I then thought; 
though in after years, when I had become more 
artistic regarding physiognomical symmetries and 
proportions, I concluded that she must have been 
copied from some badly patched pattern of the gen- 



EABLIEST KECOLLECTIONS 57 



uine Venus. But the tendrils of my affectionate 
nature had to have something to climb upon, else, 
like those of certain other plants, they should grow 
soggy and moribund. My Sylvia rescued me from 
such a fatality, as vines have been saved by the 
proximity of a rock or bramble bush. 

We two played together, kissed through many 
dozens of wreaths — as we heard they did in the 
Orient, vowed eternal fidelity, and protested against 
the snail-like progress of the years, which, instead 
of the speeding steeds of Queen Mab, would bring us 
to the connubial Paradise. 

But the web which my little favorite was weaving 
about me, being as yet only the thinnest gossamer 
threads, was suddenly broken. The calamity thus 
came about. We were playing at the top of a long 
flight of stairs. On the landing at our backs was a 
tall grandfather's clock. We had been warned of 
the danger of examining too intimately such an- 
cestral remains. Who knew what family skeleton 
might not leap out of it? The monotonous ticking 
seemed to us like the scratching of ghosts, and when 
the hammer struck the hour on the coiled wire 
sounding-spring, it seemed to knell out the hour of 
doom. 

But my inamorata was a true daughter of Pan- 
dora, and against my frantic appeals she opened the 
great door of the clock. She was swinging the long 
pendulum to make it go faster and hasten our 
halcyon day, when the entire fabric toppled over. It 
crashed down the flight of stairs, carrying us both 



58 ALONG THE FEIENDLY WAY 



along with it in the melee of its broken case and dis- 
jointed " innards." 

My bruised head and well-skinned elbows and 
knees in turn wounded my sentimental feeling; 
while the caterwauling of my lady — who I jealously 
noted was unhurt — seemed to add insult to the in- 
jury she had done me. My belief in her angelic 
qualities was quickly changed into a suspicion that 
she was a little imp of darkness whom I had better 
avoid. Moreover, her parents, standing amid the 
ruins of their old heirloom, vented their wrath upon 
me as the male, and therefore the responsible, cul- 
prit ; the father even gave vent to a cuss-word about 
" that awkward boy." 

I was completely disillusioned; but for a long 
time was more thoroughly dejected than I have ever 
been with any subsequent defeat of the " grand pas- 
sion " on a similar field. 

The love-twitterings of babes; how trifling! you 
say. Not so. Such things are not to be measured 
by the size of their causes or consequences, but by 
their relation to the capacity for endurance pos- 
sessed by those who are subject to them. Possibly 
the suffering of a fly being devoured piecemeal by 
a spider is not surpassed by the torture of a human 
victim thrown to the lions. A child's soul may be a 
tiny thing compared with its subsequent develop- 
ment, but its joys and sorrows, its hopes and de- 
spairs, are not less significant to itself, nor less de- 
terminative of character and disposition, than are 
the delights and griefs,, the triumphs and defeats of 



EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS 59 



after youth and manhood. When in later life we 
review our whole campaign, what we set down as 
only preliminary skirmishes loom up as the greater 
battles, especially if we were wounded in the earlier 
combats. 

Loneliness. 

Most children probably get their first real shivers 
of loneliness when they read of Robinson Crusoe on 
his desolate island. I was prepared to appreciate 
the solitude described in that book by some previous 
sensations of my own. 

When about eight years old I was sent into the 
country for a vacation. As a relative was to meet 
me at the railroad station and drive me across the 
country to his farm, I went alone in the train. On 
alighting at the platform called a depot I found no 
one who knew me. I waited an hour looking down 
the roads, but saw nothing more cheerful than the 
gathering dusk. A passing farmer gave me the 
direction, but as he was going the other way I got 
no lift. 

That farmer's description of the road I must 
tramp is still my most vivid itinerary of travel, al- 
though as a globe-trotter I have memorized such 
things pertaining to almost all the longitudes and 
latitudes. Here it is, — said the man : 

" A half-mile down the track, my boy, is a cross 
wood-road. Turn to the left by a lumber-pile. Go 
a quarter of a mile, then wind about by an old de- 
serted house. No, don't be afraid; there are no 



60 ALONG THE FEIENDLY WAY 



bogies there. Footpath across a big meadow and 
into the woods. A half-mile through them pines, 
and there you are. White house. Can't miss it. 
Ain't any other in sight. Good-bye, sonny ! Luck 
to you ! " 

A more dismal Thank you ! than mine was never 
wheezed from a human throat. I cough to think 
of it even after these years. 

That half-mile of railroad track! The road 
through Siberia is not longer. I counted every tie 
I stepped on, just to crowd out other thoughts that 
the very winds were blowing into my brain. I 
walked the rail to convince myself that I still had 
my nerve with me, and wasn't going to be thrown 
off my balance by 

But what was that? An express roaring around 
a curve, its headlight catching sight of me like the 
eye of some wild beast; and I was on a steep em- 
bankment. There was nothing for me but to give it 
the right of way. In doing so I slid down into a 
patch of blackberry bushes that lay in ambush for 
me at the bottom of the structure. I can now al- 
most detect the scratches among the wrinkles on my 
hands. 

Scrambling back to the track I came to a cross- 
road; but there was no lumber-pile such as my 
guide had told me of. My poor brain began to 
swirl with uncertainty. My bewilderment was not 
relieved by the counsel of a grunting woodchuck, a 
beast I had never seen, nor by the cawing of some 
belated crows, which I thought might be the buz- 



EARLIEST EEC OLLECTIONS 61 



zards such as I had heard sometimes waited for a 
man to die that they might pick his bones. 

I sat down to try to think. If that wood-pile had 
only been here ! Maybe I must walk a long way to 
another cross-road. Maybe I shouldn't. I pulled 
up some grass. It was yellow, half killed by some- 
thing that had lain on it. Examination showed the 
outlines of the wood-pile which had been removed. 
The birds that Columbus saw on approaching land 
were not more welcome than that yellow grass. 

It was spooky dark when I started along the 
wheel-road through the woods. Yet it was a path 
of revelations. I never knew before how much a 
stump resembles a bear; nor what a hideous, 
crunching, elephantine noise a jack-rabbit makes 
when he jumps through the dry leaves ; nor how a 
chipmunk can elongate himself into a ten-foot snake 
when he darts across a path; nor what flocks of 
ghosts the evening zephyr can imitate when it 
soughs its way between the trees and over the 
crackly dried grass ; nor what solid things shadows 
may become ; nor what fiendish voices the screech- 
owls have when they wake up for their nighting. 

There loomed up the outline of a house. The 
deserted house! No bogies there? If there were 
none, why did the man speak of them? Some folks 
must believe they were there. And I must cross the 
lawn and go around the house ! I tried to run, but 
my legs were paralyzed. An old well-sweep shook 
itself at me, and tried to lasso me with its chain 
and bucket. A gate leading to the back lot swore at 



62 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



me with its creaking hinges. The terrors of the 
open field made me haste to the shelter of the woods 
a little way off, and the woods frightened me back 
to the open. 

At length I entered that most fearsome forest. 
The old pines were crippled giants chasing me with 
their broken limbs for clubs. A fox scudded almost 
between my legs in his flight from something worse 
than himself. 

What that something was I was soon to know. 
There was a low growl or whine. A black outline of 
something moving. Two sparks of fire about as far 
apart as the eyes of a panther might be. I sank 
down. 

The next moment I was conscious of a cold nose 
on my cheek and a warm tongue licking my face. 
Then the beast danced about me with the glee of one 
who has found his long-lost brother. The next mo- 
ment he dashed ahead, and barking, led the way 
along a path that I could scarcely see, out into the 
meadow, across a pasture lot, and up to the farm- 
house door. With ecstatic yelps he announced my 
coming to my relative, who had mistaken by a day 
the date for my arrival. 

Almost every boy who ventures beyond the apron 
strings has had similar exploits. That is the reason 
I mention it. How lasting are the impressions such 
commonplace things make upon us! Ever since 
that night I have felt that dogs were in a sort of 
kinship with me. We own them by more than prop- 
erty right, as a man owns his children, his friends, 



EAELIEST RECOLLECTIONS 63 



his neighbors, his fellow-workers. In the Happy 
Hunting Grounds, the Indian quite naturally be- 
lieves 

"His faithful dog shall bear him company." 

Query : — Did that dog have any prognosis of my 
coming, and so go out to meet me? Is the brute 
soul so little emerged from the realm of the uni- 
versal subconscious, which psychologists imagine to 
be the realm of all knowledge, that the creature 
knew intuitively what his master had not learned 
by the mail? A dog that I now own sits looking at 
me with great soulful eyes. Is he trying to catch 
on to my thoughts, wishing that he too might be in- 
telligent and understand me ; or is he rather yearn- 
ing to tell me something I do not know, — something 
he sees in those depths which are clear to him, but 
which we humans cannot discern because our rest- 
less intelligence so frets the surface of simple and 
more certain knowledge? Maybe dogs' eyes are 
pools of divination to search which men have not 
yet acquired the art. 

How many times in my dreams, mostly waking 
dreams, I have tramped over that old country 
road ! When stranded in a foreign port and hearing 
only the babble of strange tongues; when, having 
missed my travelling companions, I have sailed 
alone over unfamiliar seas ; when I have been cut off 
from my caravan by intruding Arabs ; when I have 
been mystified and lost in the problem of life's great 
road, where it leads to, and who engineered it, — 



64 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



then I seem to be travelling again along that old 
road, wondering whether I am up against stumps or 
bears, being chewed by a panther or kissed by a dog. 

The World Breaking In. 

It is difficult for young children to think of the 
world as different from their own immediate en- 
vironment, except that it is larger. At that age we 
are like primitive men who imagined that the cave- 
cliff on which they lived was the centre-pole of the 
universe, and that the very stars swung round it. 
If his home is a happy one, the child conceives that 
the everywhere must also be beautiful, well-fur- 
nished, friendly and safe. It is not until some one 
with whom he is familiar comes home mutilated, or 
sends the sad tidings, that he realizes that civiliza- 
tion is still crude and dangerous. 

I was about eight years old when my disillusion- 
ing came. A brother, some twelve years older than 
I, was taken with the " California fever," that epi- 
demic of 1849, and joined one of the pioneer com- 
panies for a tramp across the continent to the land 
of gold. After the party, which consisted of some 
sixty men, had left the Mississippi Valley nothing 
was heard of it for some months. Our imagination 
filled in the blank with all that our elders could tell 
about unfordable rivers, trackless forests, savage 
Indians, wild beasts, serpents, worn-out clothes and 
scant food. 

At length came a batch of letters. They had been 
mailed from the most remote post-office on the f ron- 



EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS 65 



tier, to which they had been brought by members of 
the company who were unable or unwilling to en- 
dure the terrors of the Great Desert and the un- 
charted denies of the Rockies. Sickness had in- 
vaded the camp, several had died, wagons were 
abandoned, mules perished of starvation and were 
eaten. Nearly all of the party abandoned the en- 
terprise and struck out for home. 

My brother and two companions pushed on, not 
perhaps braver than the others, but because they 
believed that the Pacific was as reachable as the 
Mississippi, and the dangers ahead no worse than 
those they had escaped. 

Many weeks passed without further tidings. 
From the stories brought by those who had re- 
turned we abandoned hope. At night I would lie 
awake, seeing in my overwrought fancy the most 
terrific scenes. On the dim walls or on the moonlit 
patches of the floor I painted the pictures suggested 
by our fears ; my brother starving in some desolate 
spot, or falling under the weight of his pack, or torn 
to pieces by curious monsters of the wilderness. 
The sough of the night winds was translated into 
the hiss of the Indian arrow that felled him. 

At length letters came. They were sent around 
Cape Horn or across the Isthmus of Panama. He 
had reached El Dorado. His account of the journey 
confirmed our worst suspicions, except that of his 
ultimate fate. During the long evenings we would 
sit in front of the great wood-fire, with a few of our 
neighbors who dropped in for the exciting news, 



66 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



while my father read the thrilling descriptions of 
adventure, hardship and hazard ; of how the three 
lonely men had disagreed regarding the best trail 
through the awful solitudes of the Sierras ; how the 
little party had broken up, two choosing the trail 
which the narrator had deemed impossible and 
pushed on alone, until through a thousand menac- 
ing accidents the three found one another in a min- 
ing camp near Sacramento. 

Although I was safely at home, my intimacy with 
my brother and my love for him made his story a 
part of my own biography. I felt it all, for I had 
lived through it all, or rather it had lived itself 
through me, touching every fibre of my soul, even as 
it made my blood run hot and cold. I was now a 
denizen of a world where civilization was still in 
the making. I have never been able to divest my- 
self — I will not say merely of the knowledge — but 
of the sensation that the comparative luxury that 
has surrounded me is like that of a caravan moving 
over a desert where dangers lurk under the stones 
or peer out from hostile forms not far away. 

Boyish Adventure. 

Another recollection has trailed itself down 
through my manhood. A comrade and I, in spite of 
many warnings and forbiddings, had gone down to 
the river. What boys of eight or nine could resist 
the lure of a flat-bottomed boat on a rippleless 
though swiftly moving stream? The river was nar- 
row and crooked, with as many turns in it as there 



EARLIEST KECOLLECTIONS 67 



were kinks and folds in the fabled serpent that 
strangled the priest of Apollo. That the stream 
was not charted in our primary geography made it 
as much of a temptation as another Eiver of Doubt 
to a certain adventurous personage. We were fas- 
cinated by the smooth drifting under the flashing of 
the sunset through the shadows which great forest 
trees laid across the current and were carried by it 
several miles down-stream. 

We forgot the slipping away of both time and 
distance until a sharp clap of thunder and the sud- 
den darkening of the sky broke our reveries. We 
turned about and headed up-stream. We tugged at 
the heavy oars until lungs and muscles gave out, but 
could make no progress. The rain came down in 
torrents thickening the darkness of the premature 
night, except when the lightning fusilladed as if we 
had come upon a masked battery worked by demons. 
Utterly exhausted we had to let her drift ; whither 
we did not know. The water filled the boat shin 
deep. We were drenched through the skin. Our 
bones seemed all marrow. 

We knew that there was a big dam and a high 
waterfall a few miles below. Would we drift over 
it? Would they fish out our bodies? But from the 
maw of this Charybdis we were saved by a twist in 
the current that swirled the boat under a clump of 
alder-bushes growing out of the bank. We clung to 
the branches until we warped the craft into a tiny 
cove. For at least two hours we sat there with, 
" chaos and old night " roaring about us. 



68 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



Yet — I record this with some wonder — I had thus 
far no fear. The sublimity of the flashing lightning, 
the crashing thunder, the crackling boughs, the del- 
ugy " hish " of the rain, completely absorbed the 
mind. I understand how tiny birds are charmed by 
the glaring eyes and white fangs of a boa-con- 
strictor, and how soldiers after the first volley are 
fascinated by the fury of the battle, and don't want 
to run. 

Near midnight the storm had passed. Did the 
moon ever before shine so serenely? Schools of 
fishes broke water about us. Night-hawks cut the 
air in circles over our heads. A muskrat swam 
near to us, glanced at us with his beady eyes, dis- 
owned our company, dived and came up under the 
muddy bank. 

Now it was that, all danger having passed, my 
fright began. The terror of what might have hap- 
pened but for the Providence of the alder-bush was 
crushing. I feel the chill of it now in telling about 
it. Fortunately voices were heard hallooing our 
names ; and in a little while we were put to bed with 
hot mint tea and kindly scoldings to restore the 
cockles of our hearts. 

Since then I have been lashed fast to the bridge 
of an ocean steamer plowing through a midnight 
storm, have looked down the gullet of Vesuvius, and 
stood dizzied above the mighty canons of the 
Eockies ; but that night has always had for me the 
precedence in scenic thrills. A few days ago I mo- 
tored along the bank of that same little river with 



EAELIEST KECOLLECTIOlSrS 69 



an interest akin to that of a veteran revisiting 
Waterloo or Gettysburg. 

A Sin its Own Cure. 

I am happy to record that I can recall but one 
instance in my life when I deliberately swore. That 
I never addicted myself to the use of that censored 
part of the dictionary may have been partly due to 
an experience when I was about eight years old, in 
which the penalty came so close upon the heels of 
the offense that it left the moral very vividly ex- 
posed. The whip of the gods so quickly lashed me 
that I have run through my life crying, " Procul, O 
procul este profani." 

I had gone to a swamp to gather sweet-flag or 
calamus root. I was perched upon a tiny bog in the 
waste of mud and water, trying to pull up an espe- 
cially promising stalk. Notwithstanding all my ex- 
penditure of strength and grunting the calamus 
would not come up. My comrade, a boy several 
years older than I, was in a similar endeavor on a 
neighboring clump of dirt and roots. As a stimulus 
to his muscles he let out a few words swollen with 
the infinities. Whether he invoked the celestial or 
Tartarian powers I do not now recall ; but his lan- 
guage seemed to be charged with some sort of talis- 
manic efficacy, for he landed a splendid root. Put- 
ting my hands deep in the water I repeated his for- 
mula. My stalk instantly gave way. So did the 
bog, and I was precipitated backwards into a pool 
of slime and water. But for the timely help of my 



70 ALONG THE FEIENDLY WAY 



comrade these reminiscences might never have been 
written. 

Going home in my disreputable plight I was 
afraid to meet the inquiries of those who had taught 
me the Third Commandment, lest a second and 
worse penalty might follow. I, however, arranged 
an account of my misadventure which carefully left 
out the heart of the story. Whether my wet and be- 
draggled condition or the shame in my conscience 
was the stronger motive, I cannot now say; but I 
was seized with such remorse that I made a solemn 
vow to keep my mouth clean of like pollution. 

A little later I consoled myself quite religiously 
on hearing a text from the Book of Job ; — " God 
looketh upon men, and if any shall say, I have 
sinned and perverted that which is right, and it 
profited me not, he shall deliver his soul from 
going into the pit . . . Lo, these things worketh 
God oftentimes with man to bring back his soul 
from the pit." 

All theology aside, I look back to that mud bath 
as the teaching of a real providential lesson. Per- 
haps at that almost infantile age I could not have 
appreciated any higher ethical appeal. Why should 
I not think that the Great Father who cares for 
sparrows and babies had equally led my ignorance? 

A half century later I related this early experi- 
ence to my father, who had then reached the years 
of reminiscence at which I myself have now at- 
tained. He matched me with a like experience of 
his own when a bare-footed lad on the paternal 



EAELIEST KECOLLECTIONS 71 



farm. He had been taught by his parents a puri- 
tanical abhorrence of card-playing. The rigid pro- 
hibition of the " poisoned pasteboards " had the 
usual effect of forbidden fruit. He secured a pack 
of the contraband stuff. One Sunday morning, 
when the rest of the family were at the village 
church, he and his brother climbed into an empty 
sugar hogshead, such as adorned almost all well- 
furnished farmsteads at that day, and were often 
used for supplementary cisterns. It was open only 
at the top, so that the sky looked down upon the 
miscreants like the eye of God. The lads had 
scarcely begun their game when there came a fright- 
ful crash. If the heavens were not split, their ears 
were. The hogshead rocked as a Viking's ship un- 
der a stroke of Thor's hammer. A second blow 
knocked it over, tumbling the boys into the open 
and scattering the ground with fifty -two evidences 
of their guilt. 

The boys were, however, somewhat relieved on 
finding that their assailant was not a veritable 
Jupiter Tonans, but a neighboring farmer who had 
made a fence-rail do the part of a bolt of lightning. 
The man was very gracious to the culprits, and 
promised not to tell on them, on condition of their 
keeping a pledge not to repeat the same iniquity. 

My father said that a thousand times in after life 
the shivers of that fright had gone through him. 
For eighty years he kept the pledge. But at length 
the venerable man fell from his high resolve. When 
failing sight had deprived him of his lifelong solace 



12 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



in reading, he yielded to the temptation of his 
grandchildren and learned to play solitaire. He 
used to tell the story of his youthful misadventure 
for the sake of drawing a " moral " ; — " Boys, never 
do in secret what you would be ashamed of having 
others know." 

This led to a very wise rule in our home, — " If 
you want to play cards don't hide away in your bed- 
rooms, but bring them down into the family living- 
room. " Thus the old hogshead story became one of 
our ethical heirlooms. 



Ill 



BOARDING-SCHOOL DAYS 



~Near to Nature's Heart. 
\ FTER some years of widowhood my father 



married again. My stepmother was an ex- 



-M. cellent woman. I record with gratitude 
the love and care she wasted on me. 

I say " wasted " because, with all her accomplish- 
ments and fidelity to my minutest needs, I felt that 
she was not my mother. As I looked at the lead- 
pencil picture which I had idealized into that of 
perfect motherhood, and thought of her whom I had 
canonized in my reverent affection, I regarded my 
new maternal guardian as in some sort an intruder. 
Perhaps if I had remembered my true mother, and 
then tried to see how the substitute tried honestly 
and lovingly to take her place, I might have felt 
differently. 

When my father saw the drift of things he very 
wisely sent me away from home. He had an old 
friend, a man broken in health by the confinement 
of a city school, who had migrated to a neighboring 
State, and set up an academy among the hills. My 
father thought it would be a good experience for me 
if I made the journey thither unattended, although 
I was only ten. 

My natural timidity and a natural curiosity re- 
garding what was about to befall me en route kept 




73 



74 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



me wide awake the entire night before I set out. No 
Arctic explorer starting for uncharted ice-channels 
had more anxiety as to what he might encounter 
than I had when I was ticketed through over vari- 
ous railroads, across ferries, committed to the haz- 
ards of city transfers and mountain stage-coaches, 
and finally consigned to the tender mercies of 
strange schoolmasters, not knowing whether they 
would turn out to be Squeerses or Dr. Arnolds, 
and to the unanticipated savageries of a tribe of 
boys who would doubtless tattoo me with the in- 
signia of their own mode of life. How often since 
when starting on a voyage I have imagined myself 
ten years old, in my short trousers, saying Good- 
bye ! to all I knew ! That was the biggest of all my 
tramps abroad, although, like Puck, I have since 
almost " put a girdle round the earth." 

The boarding-school to which I was sent was 
typical of such institutions at that day. It would 
seem crude and laughably unattractive to a boy 
brought up in one of our more modern palatial 
brain nurseries, where education is presumed to be 
by less arduous processes than formerly ; where the 
e-duco-mg is accomplished by fascinating the young 
faculties to come forth of themselves through the 
influence of elegant artistic and literary surround- 
ings, while the body is developed by spectacular 
games and well-plumbed bath-tubs. 

My school was located in the tiniest village that 
was ever christened with a post-office name. It was 
hidden away on the edge of our western wilderness, 



BOARDING-SCHOOL DAYS 75 



surrounded by rough and picturesque hills, which 
were torn into ravines by rushing streams, and hori- 
zoned by a range of glorious mountains. We were 
" close to nature's heart " — a spot, I maintain, bet- 
ter adapted for a nestling mind than the suburbs of 
the best university. 

We boys there became early acquainted with the 
features of our Eldest Mother, wrinkled with rocks 
and caverns, yet laughing at us with a hundred 
sparkling streams. We learned to love and under- 
stand her many voices : the shrill call of the eagle 
and the chirp of the squirrel ; the roar of cataracts 
and the thin whisper of the winds among the pine- 
tree needles ; the thunder of the falling oak and the 
patter of its dropping acorns. We learned her 
varying moods as in winter's storms and autumn's 
silences we roamed the primeval forests that were 
often waist deep with the mould of a hundred vege- 
table generations; climbed the precipices which 
were dizzying except to goats and boys ; tracked the 
deer and the field-mice by their footprints. 

Knowledge of nature acquired not scientifically, 
but sympathetically, is the best foundation for cul- 
ture of mind and heart. Without it our after phi- 
losophies will be like dry rivers, good for boundary 
lines of thought, but not refreshing to the soul ; our 
aesthetics, whether of artist or poet, will be only 
painted fruit. Nature is life. Until we learn her 
language and commune with her the intelligence in 
us will be but arid stuff, and our emotions like the 
hopping of wing-clipped birds. 



76 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



Thoreau describes a certain new experience of 
familiarity with nature in her grander moods as 
akin to that which religionists call "The New 
Birth." I can then never be sufficiently grateful for 
that early " conversion/' when the Spirit of all vis- 
ible things seemed to take me by the hand, and say, 
" Come with me ! Love me ! Eevere me ! Feel my 
august presence ; but never be afraid of me ! " 

I attribute much of my after contentment in life, 
especially the feeling of being at home in the most 
solitary, out-of-the-way places, to the tuition of 
those days. I can say that since I was ten years old 
I have scarcely ever been lonely, except in the city 
on a summer's day when the family is out of town. 
If my solitude allows me a glimpse of nature I find 
it a cozy den. 

To the open life of those school-days I owe also a 
happy bondage to the sense of the sublime, which 
has given me many delights. I am a child again if I 
can look out upon a wide expanse; or watch the 
windings of some noble river washing the bases of 
precipices as if they were the feet of the gods; or 
wander in the long aisles of the forest, which Na- 
ture built for her first temple ; or follow the eagle, 
frightened by human voices, taking refuge in the 
depths of the sky — an image of our thoughts when 
they vanish toward the Infinite ; or stand worship- 
ping God before some Great White Throne of cloud 
that rises from the horizon. How these old-time 
sights and sounds repeat themselves in endless pan- 
orama, in unbroken oratorio, as now from my bun- 



BOARDING-SCHOOL DAYS 77 



galow " in depth of wood embraced," the cradle of 
my second childhood, I gaze out toward the sunset. 

I used to long for the poetic gift, that I might 
sing out the songs which nature sings into me ; but 
I am made more than content with my limitation in 
this regard by the conviction that the truly sublime 
transcends all expression; that the attempt to ver- 
balize it is apt to destroy the feeling itself, as we 
make birds fly away when we try to imitate their 
call. 

I am confident of this much at least, that the 
sense of the sublime is totally distinct from ability 
to express it. I travelled for a few days with an 
American gentleman who one morning stood en- 
raptured before Mont Blanc, his face pale with his 
emotion; but all he said was, "Gee! But that's 
fine ! Ain't it? " I knew an old Indian who would 
sit motionless for hours looking off a cliff, and make 
no utterance except a grunting " Ugh ! " A spir- 
itual affinity he with Saint Paul who could only 
exclaim, "Oh, the height, the depth!" when the 
vision of the Infinite rolled before him. 

Of this dissociation of feeling and the power of 
expression I am reminded by one of my teachers at 
the old academy who has since attained some dis- 
tinction as a poet. He once wrote a beautiful ode 
on Music. Presuming that such a man's soul was a 
spring-head of harmony, of which his verses were 
but the outward trickle, I invited him to visit me 
when I had also for a guest a lady of exquisite mu- 
sical talent, both as a pianist and singer. Her re- 



78 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



citals affected my poetical friend about as much as 
a nightingale affects the stump upon which she sits 
when her song fills the grove. My friend told me 
afterward that he could not distinguish one note 
from another. Either his two ears had been origi- 
nally tuned in different keys, so that to him the 
most exact harmonies were tumbled into discords, 
or else his soul had never been born into the world 
where Orpheus lived. 

This gentleman could also write Thanatopsian 
verses about the grandeurs of nature, but I am sure 
he saw none. His work was rhythmic patchwork 
suggested by other jjoets, thus making a new gar- 
ment for nature, but he was innocent of all knowl- 
edge of her naked form. He spouted Wordsworth's 
Excursiovi, but never cared to take a woodland 
walk. He recited the ode to Mont Blanc, but was 
oblivious to the grand monolithic mountain that 
upheld our portion of the sky. 

I am grateful to my Creator who, seeing me not 
worthy of both gifts — that of feeling and that of ex- 
pression — gave me the former ; that He opened my 
eyes staring wide toward the Transcendent, though 
He left me tongue-tied ; and that He sent me to the 
old academy at the base of an American Olympus, 
where I was encouraged to talk with my gods. 
What if I only prattled at them, and understood not 
a word they said to me ! I at least caught the sweet- 
ness and depth of their voices, though I knew them, 
perhaps, only as a dog knows his master's whistle. 

I have a half -pagan conviction that these divin- 



BOAKDING-SCHOOL DAYS 79 



ities understand us, as mothers understand the in- 
articulate utterances of their babes. The incompre- 
hensible powers of wood and stream, of mountain, 
sea and sky, sometimes seem to catch us to their 
unseen arms, to absorb our littleness into their 
greatness, and soothe us with the spell of their own 
immovable peace. 

Old-Time Boarding-School Sports. 

Although my children and grandchildren have 
gone to the most up-to-date intellectual incubators, 
I have no reason to envy them when I recall my own 
experience while being hatched out in a more primi- 
tive and natural way in a school nest in the Tusca- 
roras. 

Our instructors were not over bookish, but they 
knew a boy's nature, — the best part of any system 
of pedagogics. They were especially wise enough to 
encourage us in out-of-doors woodsy life, even at 
the expense of the class-room. 

We trapped game, but we must make our own 
traps; and one of the instructors had lived among 
the Indians. We wove nets, and with them 
" swept " the creeks, and captured all sorts of 
aquatic monsters, some of which have apparently 
become extinct in civilized waters; — e. g., ten-pound 
snapping turtles that lay on the bottom like round 
and slippery rocks and suggested our keeping our 
boots on; headless eels that looked like stuffed 
stockings with a row of eyes around the top. We 
knew the trout-holes within a radius of five miles 



80 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



as well as a hawk knows the roosting places of 
young chickens. 

One rule of the school was especially appreciated; 
— we could after our eleventh year keep a shotgun, 
provided it was not loaded on the premises. I never 
afterward anticipated an academic degree so ea- 
gerly as I awaited the honor of entering the society 
of our Young Mmrods. By incessant preliminary 
practice I could aim a broomstick exactly at a 
knot-hole, and my pocket-money had been hoarded 
for percussion caps. My supreme admiration was 
for one of our teachers who relieved the tedium of a 
private lesson in Latin grammar by explaining to 
us the mechanism of a gun-lock, and making up for 
the classical waste of the time by telling the tale of 
Hercules slaying the Hydra. Hercules and I subse- 
quently performed joint exploits on moccasins, 
black and other snakes found in the woods. 

Squirrels were our pets. Nearly every boy had 
one in his room. Two red squirrels used to sleep at 
night in my trousers' pockets. A gray squirrel, as 
big as a half-grown cat, was the prize exhibit in my 
domestic menagerie. But I never succeeded in tam- 
ing him. One day he sprang from a shelf at the 
rear of the room straight through the front window 
some ten paces off, cutting himself to death with 
the glass. Van Amburg couldn't have mourned 
more over the death of one of his pet lions than I 
did over the body of my savage captive. The crea- 
ture belonged to me in a special sense, for I had dis- 
covered his native lair in a hollow tree-trunk, fast- 



BOAKDIJSTG-SCHOOL DAYS 81 



ened a pillow-case over the top exit, kindled a fire 
at the lower entrance, and made him leap for his 
life into my trap. For his tragic end I therefore 
felt myself responsible. His ghost still frequently 
haunts me. What right had I to rob him of glorious 
years of life among the nut trees? And what a 
splendid spirit he showed! His leap through the 
window pane was doubtless the execution of a vow 
as deep as Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty, or 
give me death ! " How often since have I lowered 
my rifle and spared the shot when a big plume-tailed 
gray has looked down upon me with accusing eyes, 
and chatteringly taunted me with the tragic fate of 
my old pet ! Thus by his heroic death that squirrel, 
like martyrs among men, has saved many of his 
race. I will embalm his memory. I wish I had 
stuffed his skin. 

I sympathize heartily with a gentleman, now one 
of the foremost naturalists in the world, who when 
a boy told me how an owl in the Canadian woods 
assumed the shape of another owl which the lad had 
shot in a Jersey swamp the year before, and made 
the forests resound with " L-o-o-o-o-k ! Who-o-o-o-o's 
come? The wr-r-r-retch 

" 'that shot me in the field of Shrewsbury. 
Seize on him, ye owls, take him to your torments. ' ' ' 

Doubtless Beebe now finds relief for his con- 
science in the fact that there are more living owls in 
the woods because of his boyhood compunctions. 
I doubt if Colonel Koosevelt's thrills among the 



82 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



beasts of the jungle were more exquisite than those 
of two of us boys encountering a big eagle. To be 
sure, the King of Birds must have been sick that 
day, or he would not have ignominiously perched 
upon the cross-sticks of a worm-fence within shot- 
gun range. I recall how my aim, covered half the 
points of the compass before I could steady my 
nerve to draw bead on the prey. When he fell to 
the ground there was still enough life in his beak 
and talons to make it dangerous for us to touch him. 
It required cautious manoeuvering to stretch out 
his wings so far that by holding them by the ex- 
treme tips we could make the eagle march down the 
road. He put up a tremendous death fight, jabbing 
at us with his curved cimeter-like beak, and making 
frantic but feeble leaps to bury his stiletto spurs 
into our flesh. But we held on, largely because we 
were afraid to let go. After a mile or more of this 
convoy — much like a submarine taking a gunboat 
into port — we deposited our victim, an exhausted 
heap of quivering feathers, on our playground, 
where we were commanded by the village minister 
to give him one shot more as a coup de mort. 

To steal Indian-fashion through the woods with- 
out cracking a stick or rustling a dry leaf until at 
our very feet the partridge startled us with her 
" drumming " as she tried to decoy us away from 
her young brood ; — to lift the box off our " figure- 
four trap," uncertain if we should find a hare, a 
hedgehog, a 'possum or a wildcat beneath it, with 
the different sort of tactics that would be required 



BO AKDIN G-SCHOOL DAYS 



83 



to retain the prey, or, in case it should prove a 
wood-pussy, to let her go without taking toll for her 
retention ; — to fish until our stomach-clocks told us 
it was noon, clean our catch, build a bramble fire in 
an extemporized three-stone stove, gather an arm- 
ful of roasting-ears from Farmer Oakson's ten-acre 
corn-field — which we appropriated with the same 
sense of legal right that Euth had when gleaning in 
the field of Boaz; — who can think of such days 
without feeling the air again laden with the odors 
of pine and balsam and birch and charged almost to 
effervescence with ozone, making him take deep 
breaths, and rejuvenating his very senility? 

I wonder if Billy, the new boy, fresh and green 
from the city, has ever forgiven us for urging him 
to grab the polecat, with the assurance that it was 
a muskrat whose scent was exceedingly sweet when 
dried out. If he is still vengeful I herewith promise 
to pay my share for the new coat and trousers made 
necessary by having to bury his old ones in the 
ground. 

I also offer my part of due apologies to a new 
teacher who found a garter snake between the 
sheets one night when he went to bed. 

But " let bygones be bygones " ! Alas, we have 
to! 

We had no gymnasium at the academy. Had 
there been one, no boy would have gone into it, any 
more than a bird would enter a wire cage for the 
purpose of exercising on its perches and swinging- 
rings. The great out-of-doors was our playground. 



84 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



Legging and arming it up a tree-trunk is more in- 
teresting and makes better development of nerve 
and muscle than lifting oneself by ladder-rungs. 
Letting yourself down a precipice by a long wild- 
grape vine is more exhilarating than swinging on a 
trapeze. No tenpin ball is comparable with a half- 
ton boulder taking ten-rod leaps down the mountain- 
side. What concrete or porcelain-lined water-tank 
can compare with the swimming hole, where you 
can have a twenty-foot dive if you know how to 
make it? What is foot-and-wind practice on a level 
gravel path compared with a mountain climb? 
These exercises gave us more bounding blood and 
tougher sinews than if we had had an ex-pugilist or 
age-winded university champion for our trainer. 

We had no skating pond. But a river made a 
horseshoe bend around our village — seven miles 
through the woods whose protection from the winds 
left the ice unfretted by a ripple, glistening black 
ice, where your own steel made the first mark, and 
the ringing of your metal was echoed by the forests, 
or occasionally answered by a black bear that, sur- 
prised by your unexpected apparition, growled at 
you, but knew that it was useless to give chase. 

. . . " All shod with steel 
We hissed along the polished ice. . . . With the din 
Smitten, the precipices rang loud ; 
The leafless trees and every icy crag 
Tingled like iron." 

Stealing behind trees and rocks to bring down a 



BOARDING-SCHOOL DAYS 85 



hawk from the high branch of a dead tree ; ferreting 
your way behind stone walls until you are in the 
midst of a nock of wild pigeons, and can get two of 
them at a shot ; standing patiently on guard by the 
hour on the fox's runway until Reynard surrenders 
his brush as a tribute to your good aim; snapping 
the fly at the exact instant it is swallowed by the 
" boss of the brook " ; — these things train one to the 
habit of correlating mind and eye and nerve and 
muscle for simultaneous action far better than any 
device invented by pedagogists. 

I do not claim for the old school the highest 
grade for academic training. Our teachers were 
undoubtedly more painstaking than learned in the 
classics and the sciences. We did not, however, 
miss their lack of erudition, for we should not have 
appreciated it if it had really been on daily tap for 
us ; but we did appreciate their fidelity and encour- 
agement as we dug into square-roots and Greek 
roots, and, above all, into the roots of our own con- 
sciences and purposes. 

In spite of faults which would have been unpar- 
donable in Andover Academy and many another 
school of that day, I believe that we boys from Way- 
Back forged our way as far to the front of affairs, 
and in as goodly proportion to our numbers, as 
those from any of our most noted preparatory in- 
stitutions. I now recall that of about seventy lads, 
gathered largely from the neighboring country dis- 
trict, without any social or ancestral inheritance in 
the way of special culture, mostly farmers' boys, 



86 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



two were afterward ministers in the largest 
churches of New York City, eight became of more 
than local professional reputation in smaller cities 
and towns, one a highly distinguished professor in 
a great university, and others well known in various 
walks of life. 

I must tell a story of one of the most modest of 
my comrades. He lived in Southern Pennsylvania. 
On leaving college he served in the Christian Com- 
mission of Civil War days, and learned enough of 
movements preliminary to the advance of an army 
into a new section of country to suspect that cer- 
tain strangers coming into his home neighborhood 
foreboded an invasion of Lee across the borders. By 
careful observation he confirmed his surmise. He 
tried to give an alarm to the authorities at Wash- 
ington, but all wires were down. He mounted his 
horse and drove it to exhaustion over the hills ; bor- 
rowed another, and at fifty or sixty miles away 
reached a telegraphic station. He sent a dispatch 
to Governor Curtin at Harrisburg. Being from an 
unknown person the message was not altogether 
credited, but was transmitted to Washington. 
Preparation for the victory at Gettysburg was the 
sequel. 

When, some years after the war, the name of the 
sender of the dispatch was discovered, I hugged my- 
self complacently in recognizing it as that of one 
of my old pals in tracking woodsy marauders 
who had become the hero in trailing the bigger 
game. 



BOAKDING-SCHOOL DAYS 87 



As now, through the haze of nearly fourscore 
years, I envisage one by one these old boys who 
were the fathers of their own manhood, I think 
pleasantly of Wordsworth's lines : 

' ' It is a generous spirit, who, when brought 
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought 
Upon the plan that pleased his boyhood thought." 

I would send my grandchildren to the old acad- 
emy in the hills if the old teachers still lived ; if the 
old boys were endowed with perpetual youth ; if, as 
lizards re-grow their lost tails, the old buildings 
could repair the ravages of time, or the worse havoc 
often made by our remorseless so-called " progress- 
ive civilization " ; and if — Alas, there's the rub ! — 
if I could go back too. 

First Psychological Puzzle. 

A fire one night destroyed the school dormitory, 
and, but for the nimbleness of some two hundred 
legs, would have made a holocaust of children suffi- 
cient to have delighted Moloch in his most vindic- 
tive mood. I refer to it because it gave me my first 
problem in psychology, long before I ever heard of 
such a science. 

We were aroused at midnight by flames flashing 
in at the windows, smoke pouring through the ven- 
tilators, and voices calling us to fly for our lives. I 
have a clear remembrance of tumbling down from 
the upper berth of our two-story bedstead, grasping 



88 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



the handle of my trunk, and dragging it as far as 
the room door. From that moment all was blank 
until I found myself sitting on my trunk under a 
big tree some two hundred feet from the burning 
building. How I got there I cannot conceive. A 
bruise on the outside of my head and a racking ache 
inside chronicled nothing. Had I plunged head 
foremost down the great stairway in the avalanche 
of boys and baggage? Did I unconsciously and au- 
tomatically go to that seat of observation where, 
like a little Nero, I sat gloating over the wild scene 
of the conflagration? I certainly had been knocked 
out of myself; but by what and into what? Did 
my subliminal consciousness come up and help me 
when my other wits were gone, as in Eastern stories 
the fairies come up through the worm-holes in the 
ground, and help the unfortunate? That interroga- 
tion mark has hooked itself into me all my life, and 
neither Sir William Hamilton nor William James 
have extracted the barbs. 

Let me parallel that experience with another, al- 
though it occurred many years after; for chrono- 
logical sequence shouldn't hamper an old man's 
reminiscence any more than logic restrains a popu- 
lar preacher. 

I was once addressing a crowd densely packed 
into a poorly ventilated audience hall. Suddenly I 
felt myself fainting. I distinctly recall my sensa- 
tion as I floated away. Farther and farther I 
drifted through space. I could not have aeroplaned 
so far in a day. Then slowly — Oh, how slowly ! — I 



I 

BOARDING-SCHOOL DAYS 89 

drifted back again. But when I resumed my senses 
I was surprised to find myself squarely on my feet, 
and facing the audience that showed no sign of hav- 
ing noticed my absence. I recalled the word I had 
last uttered, and continued the sentence and the 
speech. After the meeting, observing a medical ac- 
quaintance, I told him of my strange experience. 
" I did not notice any hiatus in your talk," said he ; 
" but now that you speak of it, I think I can time it. 
It was probably just after you said (here he quoted 
the exact sentence). I recall that you seemed to 
hesitate for a word, took a step aside and rested 
your hand on the table." 

Is the mind like a falcon on the wrist of its mis- 
tress, to fly away and return at her bidding? A re- 
turn ball brought back by an elastic connection 
with the body? Possibly death is only the centrifu- 
gal force overcoming the centripetal, and thus per- 
manently separating soul and body: the final 
divorce anticipated by temporary estrangements. 

First Impression of a Special Providence. 

After the fire the tall walls of the school building 
still stood, though there was nothing left within 
them except piles of debris. In our school histories 
we boys had read of battering rams, and decided to 
exploit one. Some twenty of us manned an im- 
mense piece of timber, and, like the Greeks at Troy, 
rushed it head-on against the wall. The pile tot- 
tered. Again and again we drove at it, imagining 
that it would tumble perpendicularly in a heap in 



90 ALONG THE FEIENDLY WAY 



front of us. On the contrary, its cemented strength 
made it fall almost horizontally in one piece. It 
came at us like a hawk pouncing down upon a 
brood of chickens with extended wings covering 
them on all sides at once to prevent escape. Several 
of the boys were for a moment missing in the cloud 
of lime-dust that the smash sent up. However, 
upon taking account of stock, we found that our 
number and the number of bones belonging to each 
had been miraculously preserved. But the shiver of 
that moment! It fairly crumples the paper on 
which I am now, after more than half a century, 
writing. 

The village preacher the next Sunday discoursed 
from the text, " In the midst of life we are in 
death ; " about the most impressive sermon I ever 
heard, having helped provide him with a timely 
illustration. 

How often since the impression then made has 
come back at me with a sort of battering-ram 
stroke! Once with another lad I was running 
across a jam of logs that seemed to solidly bridge a 
broad river. We came to a hole where four great 
logs had so lodged against one another that they 
made a square frame about some open water. No 
swimming-pool was ever more enticing. Of course, 
I stripped off coat and trousers and plunged in. 
When tired of treading water, I essayed to climb 
out. But the logs so rolled that I could not mount 
them. It was only when I was completely ex- 
hausted that my companion managed to find a long 



BOARDING-SCHOOL DAYS 91 



slab which, he laid across one corner of the pool, and 
pulled me out. 

Once, on arriving in port, the crane, which was 
being swung in from the dock over a hatchway, 
caught the heavy iron chain attached to a smoke- 
stack. It fell, splitting a deck plank. On its way it 
tore my coat. " Thank the Lord for a narrow es- 
cape ! " said an officer. I did instanter. 

I have since crossed the ocean fourteen times 
without having been menaced by an accident. 
Query : — Which were the greater " Providential de- 
liverances," when I was frightened by the " narrow 
escapes," or when I was so carefully guarded by an 
Unseen Hand that I had not even a suspicion that I 
had been in danger at all? 

A Boy's Influence. 

"What person has most influenced your life?" 
was passed around in a company of men represent- 
ing various professions. All the magnates of his- 
tory appeared in the various answers. I called to 
recollection my instructors in the university, the 
great preachers and lecturers that had charmed my 
attention or swayed my purposes, and the most 
notable books I had pondered. When it came my 
turn to respond to the question, I replied " Eeddy 
Copeland." 

" Reddy Copeland? " queried the high-brows. 
" And who was he? " 

" One of my boy comrades before I was in my 
teens," I replied. 



92 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



Reddy was not particularly brilliant, except for 
his red hair which gave him his sobriquet. I cannot 
think of any single thing he ever said or did that 
was of any great importance. But he was one of 
those fellows who have a way of getting close to 
you; and, being a little older, a little stronger, a 
little wiser, a little more venturesome, of a little 
quicker initiative and a little more persistence, lead 
you on at least one step further than you had at 
first thought of going. 

If this Cicerone should happen to be a vicious 
boy, woe unto you ! If he is a good boy, thank God 
for having brought you two together. I do. I won- 
der if Reddy is living. He has made no flaring mark 
on his generation, or I should have known it. 
Would he recognize himself in my description? 
Probably not; for I presume that he was utterly 
unconscious of his leadership. 

The secret of Reddy's influence was in the fact 
that in age, studies, sports and disposition he was 
so near to me that I never lost his trail. There were 
boys of more talent and more virtue, and certain of 
our instructors were men of saintly character and 
much erudition, for some of them afterward became 
college professors ; but they were too far away from 
me. I admired and reverenced them, but I did not 
feel them. I would con over the wise things they 
had said, resolve and perhaps pray over their sug- 
gestions ; but when Reddy said " Come on ! Let's do 
this ! " he pulled me after himself. When he 
wouldn't do a thing, he blocked my way also. 



BOARDING-SCHOOL DAYS 



93 



I volunteer this hint to young people; — Your 
greatest tempter or your best helper, especially in 
matters pertaining to character, is apt to be some 
one very much like yourself. Personal influences 
seem to have the same law as gravitation, — the at- 
traction diminishes with the distance. In respect 
to morals the title of a lecture by a noted university 
president is significant, — " Education by Conta- 
gion." It is the " Power of the Touch." 

Companionships Unfelt. 

While some companions, like Reddy, indent them- 
selves upon one's memory, others fail to make more 
than a shadow-impression upon us, although we 
may have been associated with them in the most in- 
teresting scenes, and may have been partners in 
events that stirred our souls equally. An incident 
will illustrate this. 

I was recently riding in a train through the dis- 
trict of country where the old academy was located. 
My seatmate was an elderly man whose face at- 
tracted me strongly, yet I could not tell why, for 
there was no familiar line in it, nor was he espe- 
cially prepossessing. I am now confident that my 
attention was drawn to him by the telepathic influ- 
ence that plays between two persons who are at the 
time in the same current of thought or emotion. 
The man suddenly turned to me, and without any 
preliminary remark, as if we had been conversing 
\ familiarly before, said : 

" When I was a boy I went to a school somewhere 



94 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



over the hills yonder/' mentioning the name of my 
first Alma Mater. 

" So did I," I exclaimed, enthusiastically. " In 
what year? " 

" 1852." 

" Why, then we must have been schoolmates." 

The gentleman gave me his name. I had no recol- 
lection of ever having heard it before. Mine was as 
strange to him. But with the general life of the 
school, the doings of some of the boys and the eccen- 
tricities of some of the masters, he was quite fa- 
miliar. Among his reminiscences he began the 
following : 

" Three of us fellows one day played hookey. We 
spent the day down at Pomeroy's creek. We were 
wading in water and mud about to our waists when 
one shrieked out ' Bloody murder ! 7 and declared 
that he had stepped on a big round stone that wrig- 
gled from under his feet and tried to bite him." 

"Hold on!" said I. "I was that boy. The 
stone was a mud-turtle as big as a kneeding pan. 
We dug him out " 

"Yes," interrupted my companion, "and tied 
him to a tree stump, tearing up a net for a rope. 
Then we turned him on his back with the help of a 
swimming plank." 

" And then," I put in, " we tied his floppers, and 
carried him home hanging from a fence rail on our 
shoulders." 

" Only we didn't dare to go home with him," cor- 
rected my seatmate. " We were afraid of old G — 



BOARDING-SCHOOL DAYS 



95 



the principal. So we went over to Mammy Young's 
cottage. She killed a hen for us, and " 

" Only she didn't kill the hen," I prompted. 
" We had to kill the hen ourselves, pick her feathers 
off and clean out her innards. That was always the 
condition of Mammy Young's giving us a fricassee 
with buckwheat cakes for a quarter." 

" A quarter? " said my friend. " You mean two 
bits, for that was still the numismatic nomenclature 
in that part of the Union. And you have forgotten 
the apple-sauce that went with the chicken. And 
how old Mammy Young loved us boys, and would 
never blab on us, when, after the most disgraceful 
escapades we turned up at her house with an appe- 
tite and the two bits." 

Thus we two old boys swapped and paralleled 
. memories for an hour; but, strangely as it seemed 
to us both, neither of us recollected the other's per- 
sonality at the time when ive were partners in one 
of the most exciting scenes of our boyhood. The 
mud-turtle and the hen had made more impression 
on us both than had each other's souls. 

Is there some subtle, unintelligible affinity be- 
tween certain persons that makes them feel one an- 
other without the help of circumstances ; while be- 
tween others there is a natural irrelation, only a 
" dead wire " connection that fails to convey a 
spark of real spiritual sympathy big enough to 
make recognition? How little outward communi- 
cation has to do with inward communion ! Are we 
men like chemicals, some of which will never unite 



96 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



with other chemicals though we try to hammer or 
fuse them together ; while other substances combine 
at the slightest touch, or even because of proximity? 

Do not regard me, then, as especially selfish, in- 
different or case-hardened, when I confess that the 
vast majority of those whom I have met in after life, 
even in seemingly intimate association, in boards, 
commissions, professional work, neighborhood and 
social life, have consciously influenced me less than 
some with whom I have only touched elbows in the 
passing crowd. 

Kindergarten Archaeology. 

I recall no class in History at the old school. 
Perhaps it was because I was regarded as too young 
to chronologize the ages. Yet while there I ac- 
quired a passion for historical study which has ob- 
sessed me all my life. I retain from those days a 
taste for grubbing the deep-down archaeological 
roots of the human story. 

A mile or two away was a famous "Indian 
mound." It stood some twenty feet high, and 
covered about a quarter of an acre. It had been 
for generations an aboriginal cemetery. Thousands 
had shed their red skins and given their white skele- 
tons for this monument of a now extinct tribe. It 
was especially famed as the burial place of war- 
riors. One could count the battles of the tribe by 
the thicker layers of bones, as one counts the suc- 
ceeding civilization of the entire human race by the 
ruins of Forum and Temple piled one upon another. 



BOARDING-SCHOOL DAYS 97 



We boys delved through this mortal debris. Near 
the top were bits of skull still holding the bullets 
that had broken them. Lower down we found ar- 
row-heads in profusion, indicating a date before 
firearms were generally used by the savages. Now 
and then a tomahawk would lie near to a heap of 
finger bones, in token of the brave hand that had 
wielded it. I have sat long on The Mound, and 
tried to visualize in imagination the passing of the 
tribes on their way to the Happy Hunting Grounds. 
Their lives were narrow, inconsequential, but to 
each one of them as important, as absorbing, as ex- 
citing as that of Kaiser or Czar. I tried to realize 
to myself the meaning of those masses of humanity, 
as I did the meaning of the grains of sand on the 
desert, the leaves of the forest that strewed the 
ground, the birds that darkened the sky when the 
flocks passed over me on their way southward. 

I remember, long years afterward, having the 
same emotion, the same attempted calculation, the 
same sense of the mystery of it all, as I sat on the 
parapet of San Angelo in Rome, and tried to count 
the epochs of history that had flowed as ceaselessly 
as the Tiber at my feet. I think, however, I was 
more jostled by the Time-Spirit at the Indian 
Mound than at Hadrian's Tomb. At least the for- 
mer, perhaps because it came first, made the deeper 
impression of the multitudinous vastness of hu- 
manity and the littleness of any individual or any 
era. 



IV 



RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS 

First View of Death. 

MY profession has thrown me much among 
tragedies. I have no desire to depict the 
worst of them here. Those which men 
write about in books or act on the stage are only 
surface shadows above the depths of common ex- 
perience. 

My deepest experience of the tragic was exceed- 
ingly commonplace. It was not when the warring 
nations of Europe transformed their happy lands 
into charnels. It was not when I walked amid the 
ruins of Messina above the sepulchers of eighty 
thousand who had no other burial tomb than the 
debris. It was not when awakened by the sound of 
the great cathedral bell that, during the Civil War, 
announced a victory by pealing forth the Star 
Spangled Banner, and a defeat by discordant 
clash, as if the thousands on the battle-field were 
together shrieking their last agony. 

One afternoon a comrade at the academy dared 
me to follow him in a dive from the spring-board 
into the great swimming hole. 

With merry laugh he turned somersault into 
the water. 

How that laugh still rings in my ears ! I waited 

98 



BELIGIOUS IMPEESSIONS 99 



on the spring-board for my comrade to reappear be- 
fore imitating his exploit. A half-minute of de- 
light ; a half -minute more of curiosity ; another half- 
minute of consternation. The tiny waves made by 
his plunge subsided ; the surface of the pool quietly 
reflected the overhanging branches. But my com- 
panion came not. We waited, I know not how long, 
before we called for help, for thought was paralyzed. 
A vast Vacuity, a horrible Nothingness, had ab- 
sorbed a human life as the atmosphere absorbs a 
broken bubble. We boys were bubbles, so were all 
the people in the villages, in all the world ; and that 
Nothingness was waiting to swallow us too ! 

An hour later we stood around a white body on 
the bank. How long we looked at it, and tried to 
realize that it was he ! For hours and months and 
years I have continued to see him — the body so 
white, the face so beautiful turned into marble ! 

That hour on the bank my thoughts first began 
to tangle themselves in the inextricable mystery of 
death, of which I am still awaiting the solution. I 
then knew that what I had thought to be a solid 
ground beneath me was but a thin surface, like the 
film of ice which the first cold day would put over 
that swimming hole ; and ever since I have walked 
timorously except as a wiser faith has given me 
courage. The pride of childhood — and no one is so 
proud and self-sufficient as a child may be — all 
shrivelled and shrank into a sense of humiliation, as 
for the first time — yet for all time — I realized that I 
was a denizen of the Unknown, and that nothing 



100 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



was so unknown as I myself. This was my first 
conscious step on 

"The great world's altar stairs, 
That slope through darkness up to God." 

The shock of that first look upon death might 
have been very hurtful to me, but for a second look 
which revealed to me that the face of the Great 
Inevitable was not that of a monster. For some 
weeks I had gone about bewildered, frightened. 
As the temperature of the desert dries up the 
fountains, so the dread Unknown about me seemed 
to desiccate my life of all possibility of enjoyment. 
That white marble countenance of my comrade 
looked in upon me everywhere. It was at my bed 
at night ; it stared out of the heap as we scrambled 
for the football ; and the rigid and stark form would 
start up at my side as I walked. 

There was another boy in the school to whom I 

was greatly attached. Tommy was a loving 

fellow. Like myself, he was far away from home, 
motherless, somewhat lonely ; so we exchanged con- 
fidences. 

Tommy was suddenly stricken with fatal illness. 
With what muffled feet we walked up and down the 
long hallway past his room, and then went to our 
own rooms crying when the doctor came out of the 
sick-chamber shaking his head ! A few of Tommy's 
most intimate friends were permitted to enter his 
room just before the end came. On the bedside sat 
the village minister, a rough sort of sky-pilot, of 



KELIGIOUS IMPKESSIONS 101 



whose big heart and common sense I will have more 
to tell later. Tommy's eyes were fixed intently 
upon the minister's face, his own aglow with happy 
emotion, as when one listens to a charming story. 
The minister was translating the classic Biblical 
description of Paradise into the language of 
familiar woods and streams where we boys had 
played together. He told of the wonderful change 
that had come upon the mother and sister whom 
Tommy had lost, now that they were in the light 
that is fairer than ever falls from the earthly sky. 
He spoke of Christ as if He were the big brother 
who waits to welcome us when we enter the higher 
grade school called Heaven. The man's words and 
manner were utterly devoid of pietistic solemnity, 
and as simple and cheerful as if the two were speak- 
ing of a coming vacation. When the sick boy 
caught a glimpse of his playmates at the foot of the 
bed, he made an effort to raise his thin hand, and 
gave us his speechless salutation and farewell. 
His gaze trembled an instant, then seemed to be 
diverted by a vision of something radiant. So his 
soul passed. 
And this, too, was Death. 

The rigid, expressionless features of my drowned 
comrade were surely only a material mask that 
Death puts on. The face of Tommy, loving, ecstatic, 
reflected some sort of gleam from the very Soul of 
Souls, which we call the Unknown. I needed then 
that happier impression ; and it has stayed with me 
ever since. 



102 ALONG THE FEIENDLY WAY 



Subtle Influence of Places and Men. 

Among the ancients was a persistent belief that 
certain places are peculiarly sacred to the gods, who 
there commune with men. Sometimes doubtless 
this mystic credulity was born from a sense of awe 
awakened by natural features of the spot; as, for 
example, Mount Olympus, amid whose sublimities 
Heaven seemed to mingle with earth; the awful 
chasm of Delphi, the echoes of which were prophetic ; 
the Oak of Dodona whose rattling leaves suggested 
the babbling of eternities ; the Cave of Pan, out of 
whose rocky sides a river leaped full-headed and 
resistless, the symbol of the fates of men. 

Among the early Jews and Arabs it was assumed 
that divine manifestations might be rewitnessed at 
places where the deity had before appeared or 
spoken. Thus the Patriarchs in their wanderings 
established depots of spiritual blessing to which 
they afterward resorted, as Arctic explorers build 
cairns along their projected routes, and stock them 
with provisions. Abraham revisited Bethel, where 
he had had a previous blessing. So did Jacob, seek- 
ing to renew the sense of the divine covenant which 
it was believed Jehovah had aforetime made with 
his fathers. 

Similarly the site of the old academy is hallowed 
ground in the minds of some of us, now gray-headed, 
who sojourned there during the middle part of the 
last century. Although it was not a denomina- 
tional school, nor under any strictly religious con- 



RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS 



103 



trol, yet year after year the majority of the scholars 
were led to consecrate themselves to high spiritual 
ideals. 

That the influence of the spot was not limited to 
the creation of passing emotion, as is so often the 
case in what are known as Revivals, is evidenced 
by the fact that among my comrades, say seventy 
boys, there were, as I have stated, more than a 
dozen who afterward attained somewhat of distinc- 
tion as preachers and leaders in moral and philan- 
thropic movements. As in after life I have met 
these men I have been impressed with the practical 
turn of their minds; though of evident piety they 
had an abundance of what has been called " sancti- 
figumption." 

Were we boys under a special spell of the genii 
of the place? I remember, to borrow the classic 
figure, that I had my own Dodona Oak whose 
branches roofed a hundred feet of the stony hill- 
side, and whose gigantic roots made my first library 
chair, sitting on which and listening to the acorns 
fall I received more inspiration than from any seat 
of learning I have since occupied. There were also 
Pisgah heights in the neighboring hills where I 
used to go and sit by the hour, watching the smoke 
curling from distant farmhouses, and straining my 
soul eyes to see across a little river that I likened to 
the Jordan that separates the present from the 
future world. There were also vast silences in the 
depth of the primeval forests, very helpful to one 
who should try to hear that "still, small voice" 



104 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



which is willing to speak to any one who will silence 
the babble of his own thoughts. 

Yet there are other places in the world with 
physical adjuncts far more favorable to the mystic 
mood than the neighborhood of the academy; but 
not even the Gorner Grat has for me so high a 
spiritual note, nor does the Canon of the Yellow- 
stone sound me so deejay. I have stood on the 
Temple platform in Jerusalem, I have gazed from 
the dome of Saint Peter's in Rome, and invoked the 
gods from the ruins of the Parthenon in Athens. 
Rut a crotch of an old tree on the edge of a cliff that 
overlooks an unmapped valley was to me a higher 
point of inspiration. 

Is there truth in the medieval theory that a spiri- 
tual aura lingers over some spots, a subtle influence 
from the souls of those who have lodged there, 
which all the winds of the lower sky can never blow 
away? Did the fact that revivals of religion had 
in past years swept over our happy school valley 
perpetuate the tendency to their repetition? Did 
the knowledge that this spot had previously been 
sacred to so many consecrations awaken in us boys 
an expectancy which thus became a " prophecy that 
fulfills itself "? 

I can think of but one tangible clue to this maze 
of speculation. There was, and had been for many 
years, in the little community a person about whom 
the religious interest seemed to centre, or rather 
from whom it appeared to emanate. He was the 
local pastor, to whom I have referred ; — a man of no 



KELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS 



105 



special learning; of exceedingly crude, though 
rather lurid, rhetoric; but of a wonderfully deep 
sympathetic nature, and a common-sense shrewd- 
ness in talking to boys. He played football with 
us. ( I here reverently, penitently, apologize to his 
ghost, if it hover hereabouts, for having once barked 
his shins and thus prevented his getting the ball 
aAvay from me. ) He taught us the tricks of the wild 
game in the woods, and also the tricks of the devil 
in preying upon us " young kids." He could find 
water with the hazel branch, and he knew by some 
subtler means the hidden springs of motive in a 
boy's soul. 

If sanctification is only double-distilled refine- 
ment and morals is only mores or manners become 
second nature, as some affirm, our pastor was cer- 
tainly no saint. I have seen him pause in the midst 
of a sermon, draw from his pocket a plug of nigger- 
head tobacco, bite off a piece and proceed to his 
" finally brethren." He was unread, except in the 
Bible, and that he had studied just as he studied 
garden manures, to get quicker results, and to put 
stiffer stalks into the souls of his parishioners. 

Of the strange, but powerful, influence of this 
almost backwoods pastor, I may give a telling illus- 
tration which I borrow from some ten years later. 
In my early manhood my path was crossed by that 
of a very brilliant young German. He had gradu- 
ated from a famous university, had travelled much 
and read enormously, written learnedly on philo- 
sophical and other topics. He was a thorough Ger- 



106 



ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



man, and evidently believed himself to be a fair 
specimen of what a Superman should be, although 
that word had not yet ambitiously climbed into use. 
He claimed to have outgrown Christianity, except 
as an archaeologist never outgrows antiquity. Re- 
ligion was to him only a study in the history of 
psychological science. I think I had never met a 
man who was more " able to give a reason for the 
tm-faith that was in him." 

As my German friend needed a rest somewhere 
among the high hills, I recommended my old school 
neighborhood. I had some misgivings in introduc- 
ing him to Pastor ; for a greater contrast be- 
tween two intellects could scarcely be conceived. 
My friend's first letters to me after his arrival were 
full of polite contempt for this " Yankeefied John 
the Baptist preaching in the wilderness." A little 
later he expressed a liking for the rough diamond 
in the man ; after a while a real fondness for the big 
soul and genial comradeship, " better than any doc- 
tor's medicine, for there is a healthful ozone about 
the dominie." Before the season was over my 
proud scholar and philosopher wrote me a letter 
that would not have been more pathetic if tear- 
stained, in which he confessed himself an humble, 
soul-satisfied Christian. His comments upon the 
pastor were substantially these : 

" Philosophers think ; this man has felt." 

" Scholars talk about the humanities ; this 
man talked about myself and himself, and he 
seemed to be expert in both fields." 



KELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS 107 



"There was something solid in his experi- 
ence ; mine was only vacuum or suds." 

"He was no theological visionary; but he 
seemed to have seen that greatest of all visions, 
the face of Jesus Christ." 

Who directed this self-sufficient German sceptic 
and made him turn at the proper cross-road? Well ! 
A " tender-foot " who has lost the trail will learn 
more from an Indian than he will from a commis- 
sion of map-makers. 

A Boy's Feeling. 

If you ask me about my own personal religious 
experience at the school, I will reply in the words 
of a real saint, — " Oh, I have never had any ex- 
perience to speak of/' While I was exceedingly 
sensitive to all the moods of nature around me, my 
soul was as echoless as a vacuum to dogmatic ap- 
peals. 

I once thought I must have been born a spiritual 
deficient. This notion was confirmed in me by the 
judgment of a strolling phrenologist who belonged 
to the race of gypsy scientists that has about passed 
away, and who gave me twenty-five cents' worth of 
examination. He pronounced my skull to be lack- 
ing in such protuberances as would indicate rever- 
ence and credulity. I abounded only in spiritual 
lowlands. This wise man's opinion might have per- 
manently injured me, were it not that shortly after- 
ward I submitted my bumps to the fingering of a 
fifty-cent philosopher, who expressed his amaze- 



108 ALONG THE FEIENDLY WAY 



ment at the size of the spiritual hills he found in my 
cranial landscape. But I am inclined to think that 
the former of these experts was nearer right, and 
perhaps more honest with me. For my soul simply 
wouldn't melt into the molds of experience which 
were set for us by the approved revival methods of 
that day. 

For instance, much used to be made of what was 
called the Law- work in a soul ; a deep sense of sin ; 
a recognition of the justice of God should He be 
inclined to damn us for our transgressions. I knew 
that I was as full of faults as a sieve is of holes, and 
I could keep my complacency, when the minister 
looked down at me from the pulpit, as little as the 
sieve can hold water. But I couldn't feel myself to 
be a " damnable " even of the pigmy sort. So I ac- 
cepted the divine grace with no great sense of relief, 
for I realized no great need. It seemed to be even 
more natural that God should forgive me for my 
worst offenses than that He should damn me. I 
was sure that my father would have done so, if I 

had asked him. And I was sure that Mr. — , 

one of our junior instructors, who let me sit on his 
knee when he corrected my Latin exercises, would 
have done so too. Indeed, that teacher really did 
know of some of my graver faults, and never even 
reported me to the principal. He gave me, I fear, 
a clearer idea of Grace than I got out of the Cate- 
chism. 

For a year I was a rebel. Possibly I would have 
grown up outside any church had it not been for a 



RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS 



109 



venerable clergyman who told me that, as a child, 
I could no more assay my own experiences than I 
could analyze the philosophy of the Westminster 
Creed. He advised me to attempt neither. 

Then I joined the church. Was it wise? Did 
I know enough? Had I felt enough? Was I good 
enough? No. But I think I was honest. I be- 
lieved in God's goodness. Did I not see it every- 
where? So I said to myself, " God will never go 
back on you. Trust Him, and go ahead. You will 
get awfully muddled if you don't." 

That, by the way, is about the most clarifying 
judgment I have ever achieved in all my moraliz- 
ings and all my religious lucubrations. 

Sixty Years After (Parenthetical) . 

While writing the above my memory so obsessed 
me that sixty-odd years vanished, and I was a child 
again. When I aroused myself I wondered if the 
old school were still in existence. Possibly the 
tooth of time may have gnawed away all the houses 
of the tiny village; or the demon called Progress 
may have wrecked them into a modern town with 
ugly brick buildings, tall smoking chimneys, and 
corner saloons. I would go and see. 

A train ride of several hundreds of miles, with a 
buckboard supplement of ten miles further, brought 
me to the spot. I might have passed by the village 
but for the remark of the driver, " We hevn't to go 
no further." 

I disputed with him for the moment, charging 



110 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



him with having brought me to the wrong place. 
But he was right. One half-ruined building was 
the sole monument of the educational cluster of 
edifices that in a hundred of my dreams have loomed 
bigger than those of any university. The old church 
still stood on the hilltop ; but it seemed to my dis- 
appointment like a ghostly sentinel watching over 
a battle-field from which the war had long since 
drifted away. 

But the hills were unchanged, only they looked 
lower. In their undulations they seemed to be 
bowing to welcome one whose boyhood feet had 
tramped them long ago. The little river called out 
to me with the same merry laughter of its ripples; 
but, like some old men, it seemed dwarfed, while the 
swimming hole had been choked by the debris of 
half a century. A fish broke water in the pool, as 
if it said, " Hello, old chap, we've been lonesome 
without you." A few ancient trees I recognized 
by their sites and shapes, but they had many 
decrepit branches that made my own limbs ache in 
sympathy, for all that the trees seemed to wave at 
me and say, " So long, old boy ! " A big gray 
squirrel, doubtless in the sixtieth generation from 
the one in whose tragic taking off I had had such 
guilty part, scolded me saucily as if his family kept 
up the vendetta against the murderer of his an- 
cestor. 

A small country school is held in the part of the 
building still standing, and reminded me of a sucker 
growing from the stump of an old tree; for the 



EELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS 111 



legends of the spot had kept it " educational." The 
teacher and pupils listened to my story of the past 
very much, I suppose, as I have listened to Lanciani 
amid the ruins of Rome. My talk doubtless seemed 
as primitive and fabulous, as I tried to locate the 
lines of ancient walls of what had been to me both 
Temple and Forum. 

I have spoken of the tendency of the mind to mix 
imagination with memory, and to recollect things 
that were not just so. An incident occurred during 
this visit which made me fear that I might have 
been stricken with that disease of unconscious 
mendacity. I had told to one of the people I met 
how a lot of us boys had one day pried a great 
boulder out of its socket and started it rolling down 
the long and steep hill which ended in a stone 
schoolhouse at the bottom of the valley. I de- 
scribed how it leaped into the air, taking a rod at a 
jump, crashing through the small saplings, strik- 
ing at last the end of the schoolhouse, and making 
the stone chips fly as if under the impact of a 
battering-ram. My listener increduously remarked 
that the schoolhouse was a wooden, not a stone, 
structure. We searched it out. He was right. It 
was an ancient frame building. The door-sill had 
been worn down by many generations of boys and 
girls, and the rot of years was in its rafters. Alas 
for me ! 

But my relief came. An older inhabitant 
shambled into our group. He said, " The stranger 
is right. This house is only about fifty-five year 



112 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



old. The original school was of stun; but it was 
too small ; beside, it was pretty well battered and 
dilapidated when they tore it down." 

So I am emboldened to spin some more recollec- 
tions with the confidence that they will not be made 
of mere yarn. 

(I will enclose in this parenthesis another one. 
The ancient parsonage is still standing, — or rather 
leaning. It needs a shower of paint, for the re- 
sources of the parish would hardly warrant the pur- 
chase of paint by the can. Its roof shows the fric- 
tion of the three-quarters of a century that have 
passed over it. 

But the occupants of the parsonage belong to the 
class that never grow old. The minister, who is 
well along in years, serves a parish ten miles wide 
and twenty miles long. In this district are three 
preaching stations, between which his horse knows 
the way as well as the angels knew the road between 
Bethlehem and Nazareth. 

The clergyman is a college-bred man, and retains 
all the refinement of his class-room and society. 
His wife is as cultivated as any of the ladies who 
grace our city Woman's Clubs. Books may be 
fewer than they could wish, but on that account 
more appreciated: those that are there would not 
be disparaged by Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf of 
brain matter. 

I doubt if this family has ever received over a 
thousand dollars in annual salary; yet they have 
educated at our best colleges and seminaries six 



RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS 113 



children. Two of the sons are useful clergymen, 
who were not frightened back from their convic- 
tions by their father's hard lot. Another son is a 
physician. One daughter has gone to the foreign 
mission field. Another daughter is at the head of 
a flourishing school in the city. The youngest re- 
mains as the stay of the home while father and 
mother are passing toward the sunset. 

I have seen much of life high and low, with 
abundance and with leanness, honored and unsung ; 
but I know of few families more cheerful, who are 
contributing more to make the great world around 
them happier and better, than this one. When the 
real history of our nation is written its best-flooded 
streams of influence will be seen to have flowed 
from such fountains as these. As I sat at the table 
in the humble parsonage I almost felt envious, if 
not of their lot, certainly of their reward. 



ADRIFT 



Spineless Education. 

A FTER two years at the old academy, where 



we lived " close to nature's heart " and 



close to one another, I was unfortunately 
transferred to another institution. In about the 
Fifties there sprang up over the country, with the 
profusion of dandelions on a spring lawn, " Col- 
legiate Institutes," co-ed establishments, get-wise- 
quickly agencies, where once a year, with far-flung 
advertisements and brass-band accompaniment, 
beardless boys and short-frocked girls sported 
diplomas with the gusto of university graduates. 

These institutions were generally owned by 
private corporations of stockholders formed by 
enterprising business men for the purpose of boom- 
ing their towns. Sometimes they were held under 
heavy mortgages by the principal, who had some- 
how given the impression that he was an "Edu- 
cator," but whose chief qualification it may be was 
his ability to run the boarding and advertising de- 
partments. 

The teachers were apt to include several " sisters 
and cousins and aunts " of the principal or chief 




114 



ADRIFT 



115 



owner. This faculty was supplemented by a bevy 
of recent college graduates who were willing for a 
year or two to support the title of " Professor " of 
Latin, Greek, History, Botany or what not, until 
they should see their way to some more lucrative or 
attractive occupation. 

Providence seemed to have forgotten me for a 
while, else why was I allowed to essay even a brief 
journey on one of those " royal roads to learning "? 

On looking back upon my sojourn in one of these 
institutions, I cannot recall the slightest influence 
of any one of my instructors upon the healthy 
formation of my character. Indeed I never knew 
one of them in a friendly heart-to-heart or even 
head-to-head way, and I doubt if any of them was 
ever conscious that there was a timid, lonely lad 
who needed his kindly oversight. I bought text- 
books; attended recitations; went through a form 
of stated examinations, at which I passed, as did 
everybody else ; — but I was not taught to study any- 
thing: the art of mental application having been 
left entirely out of the curriculum. I absorbed no 
principles of a language ; no beauty of a classic ; no 
hint that "history is philosophy teaching by ex- 
ample," or indeed anything more than a dreary 
swamp across which I could jump on bog clumps 
called " chief events " ; no suggestion of any inspir- 
ing book of literature; no friendly guidance of a 
mind wiser than my own. My recollection is a 
blank broken by several nightmares. I was like a 
young savage roaming for a while through the 



116 



ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



streets of civilization, and from sheer loneliness 
longing for the tepee. 

The result was, of course, intellectual disaster. 
I came to hate the sight of hooks ; and but for the 
lack of enterprise and initiative engendered by my 
life at the school I would have donned a pair of 
thigh-boots, and gone after an older brother who 
was throwing himself away in the gold-diggings of 
California. 

Yet there was one respect in which I really 
profited at this intellectual cabbage garden. 

If my mind expanded at all it was in a yeasty 
sense of its emptiness, — not altogether a bad 
acquisition for a bumptious American lad. I hun- 
gered for mental pabulum, and my appetite was not 
spoiled by the tidbits of " culture " which were 
furnished by more fashionable schools, nor was I 
made dyspeptic by chunks of indigestible informa- 
tion. Not even such things were thrown at me. I 
left the school a healthy starveling. 

This was true of me physically as well as men- 
tally, for the refectory food showed no more signs 
of having been prepared in a diet kitchen than the 
class-room dispensary showed skill in pedagogics. 
"Boston brown (black) bread/' soggily cemented, 
was the daily piece de resistance, and bread- 
pudding, in which we recognized the putty-fied 
hearts of our breakfast biscuits, served us generally 
for dessert. 

My most pleasurable recollection of our menu 
was a banquet in my hall. One midnight we were 



ADKIFT 



117 



summoned from our sleep by the great Chinese gong 
being thrown down the main flight of stairs. Slices 
of brown bread, of which eveiw boy had surrepti- 
tiously foraged a daily quantity for a month past, 
and which had become as hard as boiler plates, bom- 
barded the door of the " professor " in charge of 
our floor. To this day the archives of the institu- 
tion have revealed nothing as to the identity of the 
perpetrators of the insurrection. Of myself, I can 
only say — and that I do with my hand on my 
heart — that I have no conscience money to return to 
the treasury of the school. 

I am led to narrate such incidents by recalling 
Goethe's preface to his renowned autobiography, in 
which he says — " The main object of biography is 
to exhibit the man in relation to the main features 
of his times, and to show how far he himself may 
have reflected them." I may thus be describing my- 
self in describing events through which I passed, 
for these passing incidents may — as some one face- 
tiously puts it — be marked by " in-side-dents" of 
more abiding character. I am sure that they af- 
fected my after disposition, else why should I so 
vividly recall them. 

By-products of Education. 

It is possible that in this ill-tempered criticism 
of the school I may do it an injustice. If the in- 
structors did not help one, they at least left one 
alone to vegetate in such fertile spots as one might 
light upon. Amid the struggles of after years I 



118 ALONG THE FEIENDLY WAY 



have often taken counsel of the thoughts and pur- 
poses that swayed me in those days of untutored 
vagabondage. I can appreciate, although I cannot 
appropriate to myself, something that the great Sir 
Humphrey Davy said of his boyhood, — "After all, I 
consider it fortunate that I was left much to myself 
when a child, and put upon no particular plan of 
study, and that I enjoyed much idleness at school. 
I perhaps owe to these circumstances the little 
talents that I have and their peculiar application." 
Sir Humphrey's brain was so healthy that it could 
"feed on its own fat," but most boys survive in- 
tellectually only by nourishment wisely admin- 
istered. 

If the influence of the instruction of the school 
described was nil, I learned some things from my 
comrades that have stayed by me. A boy chal- 
lenged me to lie between the upper and lower tim- 
bers of the railroad bridge while the train passed 
over us within two feet of our backs. The heavy 
freight seemed an eternity long, for it stopped mid- 
way the bridge, ignoring the fact that two silly 
urchins were having their souls crushed into a jelly 
of fright beneath its creaking wheels. The weight 
of that train has ever since been heavy upon me. 

By another incident I learned to have a sane 
hesitancy before doubtful ventures. A playmate 
challenged me to swim with him across the river. 
I managed to reach the farther bank when a gur- 
gling call just behind me showed that my companion 
was sinking from exhaustion. I managed to grasp 



ADEIFT 



119 



the low limb of a tree that hung over the water, and 
to extend to him my feet. He took that bait as 
tenaciously as a crab would have done, and so he 
was safely landed. I have been waked at night 
many a time with the question, "Will his fingers 
hold on?" And have turned over to sleep with 
his coughing reply, " All right, Jim." 

About the same time I felt my first stir of real 
ambition. It was during the Fremont campaign 
for the Presidency. In the neighborhood of the 
school Henry Ward Beecher addressed a three-acre 
lot full of people. While describing very clearly 
the political lines of the battle between Fremont 
and Buchanan he suddenly paused, and, looking 
toward the extreme end of the field, cried out, 
— "Who is that crawling under the fence? Why, 
I declare it is Millard Fillmore ! " So realistic was 
his description of the entrance of the third party 
into the campaign that those on the platform, in- 
cluding the chairman of the meeting, rose from 
their seats, some jumping upon their chairs, and 
craned their necks in the direction pointed by Mr. 
Beecher's finger, for the instant expecting to see 
the redoubtable figure of His Excellency, the then 
President seeking reelection, crouching on all fours 
beneath the fence rail. 

This gave me my first impression of the tremen- 
dous power of oratory. I began to say to myself, 
"What is the use of drifting like a slab down- 
stream when one may control the current of his 
own and other people's lives? " On returning to the 



120 ALONG THE FBIENDLY WAY 



school I sat half the night with my feet on the win- 
dow-sill, looking at the stars, and thinking con- 
fusedly of something like what many years after- 
ward I read in Schiller's " Wallenstein " : 

"In your own bosom are your Destiny's stars. 
Confidence in yourself, promptness, resolution, 
These are your favoring stars.' ' 

It must have been that one of the stars I hap- 
pened to be watching winked at me, and sent me a 
sort of sarcastic ray; for my conceit was suddenly 
" knocked into pie " by the thought that only such 
men as Mr. Beecher have any stars inside them 
which they may consult. Or, if others have them, 
they are as confused and indistinct as the Milky 
Way, and are of no value for introspective astrol- 
ogers. I remember stopping suddenly in my vain 
cogitations, calling myself a fool, and climbing 
sheepishly into the top story of my double-decked 
bed. My roommate, who occupied the lower floor of 
said dormitory, confirmed my suspicion that I had 
been somewhat luny by promptly calling me a sleep- 
walking jackass as I climbed up over him. 

The Goethean method I have adopted in this nar- 
rative will allow another story for the sake of its 
moral. Among our instructors was one of Falstaf- 
fian dimensions. He was a religious devotee, and 
spent more time in prayer-meetings than in master- 
ing the science he was expected to teach. Though 
prosy enough in the class-room, he put his whole 
three hundred pounds avoirdupois into his Hallelu- 



ADRIFT 



121 



jahs. There was one hymn especially adapted to 
his voice and shape. The chorus, if I remember 
correctly, began: 

4 4 The Judgment Day is rolling round. ' ' 

The " Professor " would pivot his huge hulk on a 
chair, and sway his body, like a roly-poly, in time 
with the music. I never understood how he exe- 
cuted the stunt until, years after, I saw the newly 
invented gyroscope device. One night, when either 
his enthusiasm or the incessant circular motion 
swirled his brain, the mighty mass lost its balance, 
and rolled on the floor. Though the rest of the as- 
semblage were convulsed with laughter the rapt 
saint did not for an instant lose his equanimity, but 
repivoted himself on the chair, took up the refrain, 
and continued his revolutions as undisturbed as the 
revolving earth. 

From that night on I have had a disposition to 
discount at the bank of common sense enthusiasts 
of all sorts. Perhaps we are all cranks ; but unfor- 
tunately some of us have crooked handles which 
make our gyrations a little more noticeable. 

About this time I became infatuated with the 
drama, and through a peculiar circumstance. I 
had never yet been inside a theatre, nor had I read a 
play. In the village was a Methodist minister of 
the old-fashioned type who devoted his Sunday 
evening sermon to the edification of such boys as 
could keep awake during the service. One night he 
held the fork over hell, and grilled the whole dra- 



122 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



matic fraternity from Livius Andronicus down to 
Edwin Forrest, who was then starring the coun- 
try. The preacher- s peroration was memorable: 
" Young men, beware ! Beware especially of 
Shakespeare ! His is the most alluring, diabolically 
alluring, literature ever penned." 

I knew nothing of Shakespeare, but being just at 
the time of life when one is looking for alluring 
things of all sorts, I surreptitiously made the ac- 
quaintance of the wicked William. My roommate 
and I, with the bed-blanket over the window and a 
pillow hung before the ventilator, dialogued play 
after play. Were it not that neither of us kids had 
sufficient brain development to understand and 
catch the rush of what we read, we might have run 
away and joined a troupe of strolling showmen. I 
have ever since held that the preacher's art is one of 
peculiar difficulties ; that sermons are often boom- . 
erangs, and go in directions quite different from the 
speaker's original aim. 

Sinister Influences. 

Among our instructors was a young man, a col- 
lege graduate, who was appointed to teach Greek. 
He was a brilliant fellow, handsome as the devil, 
who is said to be a gentleman at least. As there 
were only two or three of us who were beginners in 
the tongue of Homer and Demosthenes, our in- 
structor used to make us come to his private room 
for recitation. Here he need not interrupt his own 
quiet smoke, but with his feet on the table in true 



ADKIFT 



123 



university style could manage to get through the 
]esson in as short a time as suited his convenience. 
But as it would not do to dismiss the class until the 
bell rang, our instructor filled out the time with 
conversation which made up for its lack of Attic 
Salt by its salaciousness in other respects. There 
was something fascinating about the fellow ; but on 
leaving his room I felt as I once did when watching 
a cobra expand his venomous head into a beautiful 
hood. 

Did I misjudge this man? Not at all. Boys can 
scent an unsavory soul as readily as dogs know beg- 
gars and sneak-thieves from gentlemen. In after 
years I followed the career of this individual with 
much interest. He became a lawyer ; a popular poli- 
tician; was elected to the bench of his State by 
popular vote. At length he was denounced by the 
Bar Association, and removed from office for vari- 
ous offenses against common justice. 

If as a lad I had little merit, I had at least a pride 
that was extremely sensitive to anything like de- 
preciation. I was perhaps the smallest in size 
among my classmates. This suggested that at the 
annual exhibition, advertised as " The Commence- 
ment," I should be the first declaimer, — the thin 
point of the oratorical wedge which should " split 
the ears of the groundlings." I was irritated by the 
proposal to show me up for my lack of bulk and 
years. The teacher having charge of the ceremonies 
was very gracious, and promised to have my precoc- 
ity exhibited further down the program. A few 



124 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



days later I saw a printer's proof of the program. 
My name was down as that of first speaker. Never 
was a hornet more filled with rage than I was. I 
buzzed straight into the teacher's room with my 
protest. 

The man smiled complacently, and replied : 

" Why, my lad, you are not the first on the pro- 
gram. You have been misinformed." 

I whipped out the galley proof, and threw it down 
on the table before him. He colored slightly, then 
resumed his patronizing smile. 

" Why no, my boy, you are not the first on the 
program; not at all; not at all. The first is music 
by the band ; the next prayer by the principal ; you 
are not until third." 

I have since felt indignation at some people and 
contempt for others, and yet have held my tongue ; 
but this double dose of the mixture of the two was 
overmuch for my size and inexperience. What I 
said I do not remember ; but I am sure that I said it 
with full oratorical gusto and passion, for it started 
a similar feeling in my auditor, — always a sign of 
eloquence. 

" Sit down, sir ! " he cried, with a stamp of his 
foot that shook the room. He then tried to impress 
upon me the fact that as a mere boy I had nothing 
to say about whether, when or how I should appear 
at " The Commencement." He even ventured to ac- 
cuse me of dishonorable methods in spying out his 
private business at the printer's. 

A few weeks later my father sent me a letter 



ADRIFT 



125 



which he had received from the principal, express- 
ing the hope that I would return to the school for 
the next term, and ending with the words, — " We 
are doing exceedingly well by your son." I replied 
to my father that it was doubtless true that the 
school was doing well by me — so many hundred 
dollars a year — but that I was doing exceedingly ill 
by the school. Indeed, I refused pointblank to 
shadow myself again with its door lintel. 

With this early taste of " authority " I was in a 
fair way to grow up a revolutionist. I was just at 
the age Avhen one needs to believe in the goodness, 
especially the honesty, of one's superiors. I knew 
of a young mastiff, the kindest brute that ever 
played with a child ; but by one unjust cut of a whip 
he was made to revert to the savage state, and had 
to be shot. Some men have been unmade in the 
same way. No mere ethical precepts, however ex- 
alted, or however illustrated by the lives of saints 
and heroes of whom we only read in books, ever 
make such an impression on our characters as does 
the conduct of those we actually know and are pre- 
sumed to reverence for their influential positions. 
Can you blame me if my favorite Bible text for some 
time after the incident just recorded was " Beware 
of men "? 

A Friendly Rescue. 

When I left the educational incubator described 
above I was due to enter college, for we matricu- 
lated at an earlier age then than nowadays. I real- 



126 



ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



ized, however, that I was totally unprepared to do 
so either in mental habit or definite knowledge of 
the subjects I was presumed to have studied. But 
for an ambition, one half pride and the other half 
sheer doggedness which would not die down in spite 
of an inward conviction that it was vain, I would 
have abandoned the purpose of entering any form 
of jjrofessional life. But what could I do? I must 
live. And for business life I had neither taste nor 
adaptability; for art or any sort of artisanry no 
talent. 

I felt a strong drawing of my feet toward the 
Great Highway where so many wander without 
definite purpose until they lose all power of per- 
sonal initiative. As I recall those doleful days, 
and bless Providence that had not really forgotten 
me, I put my gratitude in the words of Charles 
Kingsley after a somewhat similar experience : 

" Saved — saved from the wild pride and 
darkling tempests of scepticism, and from the 
sensuality and dissipation into which my own 
rashness and vanity had hurried me. Saved 
from a hunter's life on the prairies, from be- 
coming a savage, and perhaps worse." 

From casting myself adrift I was saved by sev- 
eral agencies. First was my remembrance of the 
Old Academy among the mountains, to which my 
affection turned warmly after my unfortunate ex- 
perience elsewhere. The ideals there inculcated 
had left in me something like an inheritance which 



ADEIFT 



127 



my subsequent educational vagabondage had not en- 
tirely squandered. Then I received letters from my 
brother, almost a generation older than I, — letters 
written from a far western mining camp, in which 
he begged me never to yield to the vagrant impulse. 

Besides, I thought of my religious consecration, 
an almost infantile act, the wisdom of which I some- 
times questioned, but the power of which I never 
ceased to feel. I still believe that that seemingly 
blundering boyish act was among the wisest things 
I have ever done. I couldn't forget that once I had 
closed my eyes, and reaching out toward that vague 
Something we call God, I had said " I will ! " The 
echo of that resolution has come back to me a thou- 
sand times, " I must ! " 

I make also this grateful record here. In my 
home town was a young lawyer of rare ability and 
fast-growing reputation at the bar. He encouraged 
me to stick to my purpose regarding a college 
course, and when I alleged my lack of preparation 
he said, " Come to my office an hour every morn- 
ing." Notwithstanding his absorption in his own 
professional duties he insisted in drilling me in my 
Latin and Greek, incidentally talking into me some 
of his own high ideals. My friend has since sat on 
the Supreme Bench of the State. In common with 
multitudes I have rendered homage to his robe; 
but, as one may imagine, I have always seen be- 
neath it his great heart, and have felt more grateful 
to him than has many a prisoner whom he has dis 
charged. 



128 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



A Very Reverential Parenthesis. 

When I had written the above lines about Judge 

, I passed into a state of reverie, a mixed 

meditation on what occurred, what might have oc- 
curred had it not been for the Judge's kindly touch 
at the opportune moment so many years ago, and 
the debt of gratitude I owed him. I determined to 
write to him, and tell him what was in my heart. 

" My Dear Judge — : 

" I am just passing my seventieth birthday, 
and quite naturally am indulging in reminiscences. 
One of the most pleasing of my recollections is asso- 
ciated with yourself. I was about sixteen, en route 

for college. I was poorly prepared to enter . 

Malediction on a certain boarding-school that had 
fed me more on brown bread than on any real brain 
pabulum! I was out of health, and tempted to 
abandon a college course. You cheered me up; 
chinned me with wholesome talk, including some 
hints about Latin grammar. You helped me tighten 
up my loin strap and take a deeper breath. 

" I imagine that you have no recollection of this. 
Why should you have? To help a poor fellow was 
as natural for you as it is for a sugar-maple tree to 
exude sap. But I cannot forget it. You then 
headed me toward whatever I have amounted to in 
professional life. We speak of 6 turning points ' in 

life. Mine was on the corner of and 

Streets, in , where I one day stood a long 

time thinking as I was coming from your office. 

" I cannot let my three-quarters of a century run 
out without reminding you of your goodness, of 
which I have often thought during the last sixty 
years. Please accept my belated acknowledgment 



ADKIFT 



129 



of indebtedness. You have had many honors from 
your contemporaries. May I throw a tiny bouquet 
into the pile? 

" 'Howe'er it be, it seems to me 
'Tis only noble to be good. 
Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
And simple faith than Norman blood.' 

Pardon my intrusion, my dear Judge; but I just 
can't help it." 



This letter brought me a characteristic reply 
from the patriarch of the legal profession. 

" My Dear : 

" Your kind letter of the SOth ult. occasioned 
a veritable surprise. For all my search into my 
memory has failed to produce recollection of the 
incident about which you wrote. 

" That you remembered it and attribute to it some 
influence on the career, etc. — is exceedingly gratify- 
ing to me. An old man at times incline* to feel that 
he has been of little use to the world. I confess that 
I read your letter attributing to me somegood influ- 
ence on you with tears of gratitude. I \hank you 
very much for telling me. 

" A few weeks ago I occupied some leisuie in dic- 
tating to my stenographer my earliest recol^ctions 
of the buildings in our town, and mentioned %e one 
in which you lived when a boy. \ 



u nr 



Thanking you again, 




Judge 



\ 

has passed on at the age of eighy. 



130 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



four. I am very glad that, though at such an age 
memory is apt to be more of a sieve than a pan, I 
stopped up one of the holes with so pleasant a re- 
minder. 

In contrast with the generous encouragement 
given me by this friend I may tell something that 
my father told me many years after. He said, 
" When you were about to enter college my busi- 
ness was somewhat embarrassed. My lawyer, a 
man of experience and presumed to know men, ad- 
vised me not to assume the added responsibility of 
financing your education. He did not confine him- 
self to the business aspects of the case, but ex- 
pressed the opinion that you didn't seem to him to 
be cut out for a professional career. You were too 
diffident, lacking physique. The money spent on 
you would probably be wasted, etc. I wasn't sure 
but that he was right, for you were as yet rather 
green in the bud. But the tone of the man incensed 
me. I determined that, come what would to my 
financial position, I was going to see you through, 
at least far enough to let you prove yourself. I 

didn't tell you of Mr. 's opinion at the time, 

for I hoce anything that is apt to take the heart 
out of ft young fellow's ambition; and just then I 
thouglt that you showed some sign of depression. 
Now that you are a generation off from danger of 
juveaile mistakes, it won't hurt you to know that 
everybody was not inclined to invest in your youth- 
ful prospects." 

Had I kuown of this lawyer's opinion of me as a 




ADKIFT 



131 



boy, and had I not been kept afloat by my other 
friend's kindly words, I would certainly have given 
up. And then? Well ! Perhaps my father's law- 
yer was the shrewder observer of the two. 

The Judge's kindly office at that critical time of 
my life has prompted me to a resolution, namely, to 
seek to encourage every young man in reaching his 
own highest endeavors. Some attempts to do this 
have brought me the keenest pleasure. 

I will insert here, lest I forget it, an incident that 
occurred many years later. One dark and dismal 
night I was sitting late in my library. A storm of 
sleet had driven everybody from the streets, except 
the most miserable and the most desperate. My 
front door-bell rang. As the servants had retired, I 
opened the door myself. No one was there. A few 
moments later the bell sounded again. A young 
fellow of nineteen or twenty stood outside. He 
hesitated to make known his errand, and but for my 
insistence I think he would have run away without 
telling it. I saw that he was neither a beggar nor a 
depredator, and insisted upon his coming into the 
cheer of the library. He there told me his story. 
He was out of employment; the times were hard, 
and nothing offered. He was trying to support his 
mother and sister, but had reached the last bit of 
bread. In utter discouragement he had started out 
in the storm rather than sit idly at home, in useless 
anticipation of the coming misery. But for his love 
for those dependent upon him he would have made 
a quick exit from his personal troubles in some way 




132 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



however tragic. His mind seemed to be giving way 
as if the blinding sleet had entered his brain. See- 
ing a light in my window he had felt a resistless 
craving for a kindly word. 

I have had some honors in the world, but none 
more pleased me than this testimony that I was not 
known in my neighborhood for hardness or indif- 
ference to my fellow-men. 

The young man confessed that after first ringing 
the bell he had gone away, doubtless from a sense 
of dignity that forbade his intruding himself upon 
a stranger. But that yearning for a human touch 
brought him back. I cheered the young fellow as 
well as I could, and promised to stand by him in a 
small way, for I saw that he was a man of gentle- 
manly instincts and breeding; yet, like so many 
others, that he was caught in that first swirl of the 
maelstrom of discouragement which so often proves 
fatal. Had I not myself felt a little of the blinding, 
bewildering spray of that vortex? 

[Twenty years later I congratulated that man on 
his prosperity as a merchant, the community on 
having so public-spirited a citizen, — and myself for 
having sat up late one night and answered my own 
door-bell.] 

A Teacher Taught. 

While waiting to enter college I acted for a 
month as teacher of a small district school. The 
principal, an intimate friend, had been taken ill and 
requested me to act as his temporary substitute. 



ADEIFT 



133 



He warned me of one boy who would probably give 
me trouble. This was an overgrown Irish lad whose 
bulk, like SauTs stature, gave him leadership among 
the pupils. 

"I have flogged John several times," said my 
friend, " but I would not advise you to attempt it, 
unless your size sadly belies your pugilistic ability." 

The first morning at the school things moved 
very quietly. I thought, however, that I detected a 
sort of Donnibrook Fair gleam in John's eye. There 
was also a forced good-behavior manner about the 
other boys as they filed out at the noon recess 
which suggested the fair sky we call a " weather- 
breeder." The afternoon realized my suspicions. 
Bedlam reigned. 

At the close of the session I asked John to remain 
a moment. He came up to my desk somewhat in the 
mien of Goliath of Gath. But I thought I detected 
in his broad Hibernian face more good-natured dev- 
iltry than fiendishness. 

" John," I said, " I believe that you are at the 
bottom of the disorder in the school." 

He grinned as if he felt complimented. I wished 
at the moment that I could put on an extra fifty 
pounds to my weight ; but John's heft didn't allow 
me to inflate my courage. I remembered the saying 
of some great general, — " If you are sure you can't 
whip your enemy don't try to ; rather make alliance 
with him, and let him help you whip some of your 
other enemies." The counsel seemed good to me. 

" John, sit down here ; let's have a talk." 



134 



ALONG THE FKIENDLY "WAY 



I offered him a chair on the platform where I was 
sitting. John's grin softened into a smile. 
" John, I want yon to do something for me." 
The smile became qnite amiable. 
" Yon can make the boys do anything yon like." 
He nodded assent. 

" Say, J ohn, give np your pranks until Mr. 

, the principal, comes back. I'm not your 

boss. I'm only your guest in the school. Help me 
to keep order." 

" Do you mean that? " asked John in a somewhat 
incredulous tone. 

" Certainly I do," I replied. " A fellow like you 
can just as well captain the boys for good as for 
bad. Try it." 

John got up and shook his huge bulk as if he 
wanted to get himself all together ; then looking me 
straight in the eye he said, 

« Mr. , I'll do it for you." 

We had perfect order from that day on. I learned 
that before school the next morning John had 
threatened to wallop any fellow that threw a spit- 
ball or shuffled his feet during the day. 

J ohn and I became chums. He would walk home 
with me in the afternoons, — a really lovable fellow 
in spite of a disposition to scrap. 

" John," I said, " why didn't you behave as well 
when the principal was here? I understand that he 
flogged you several times." 

" That's thrue," said John. " He's flogged me to 
behave, but he never ashed me to." 



ADKIFT 



135 



I put that answer down in my code of maxims for 
dealing with one's fellow-men. Often it has come 
to my mind, and I have no doubt that the timely 
remembrance of John has saved me from getting 
the worst of some scrimmages in after life. 



VI 



COLLEGE DAYS 

Temptations. 

I TAKE little stock in what many writers of ad- 
vice to young people consider important, 
namely, decisive moral battles, the issues of 
which determine subsequent character. Our ethical 
dispositions are ordinarily slowly, not suddenly, 
formed. The undermining of morality is apt to be 
due to insidious sapping beneath the foundation of 
principles rather than to furious assaults upon 
character by the great fiend. 

Viciousness is often acquired not from violent 
temptation, but from continuous contact with im- 
moral comrades, as physical disease is engendered 
by contagion. But more commonly a man is his 
own tempter; he becomes degenerate through the 
habit of low-grade thinking, when passion soddens 
the judgment, and lasciviousness blears one's higher 
ideals. We are the victims of self -hypnotism, a sort 
of auto-intoxication with our evil desires. Cicero's 
advice is always timely, — "Hold off from sensual 
thoughts, or soon you can think nothing else." 

Yet there are times when every man must go 
down into the " Valley of Decision," and either ride 
out victor or crawl out vanquished. I had my fight 

136 



COLLEGE DAYS 



137 



goon after entering college. I fell in with a set of 
" royal good fellows." Within a few weeks we had 
exhausted interest in reminiscences of earlier school- 
days, and swapped to weariness our pet ambitions 
for the future. The mental vacuum thus created 
must be filled with something else to save us from 
ennui, unless we were to break up our pleasant 
coterie and become student-monks in our separate 
cells. 

Cards were the fashionable panacea for ills pro- 
duced by over-study, over-eating, over-smoking or 
laziness. Soon the single game after supper became 
prolonged into a series which lasted until midnight. 
We sat with double curtains at the window, thick 
padded ventilators, dense tobacco smoke and whis- 
pered confab. 

One night after our usual play either my fairy 
godmother or my rebellious conscience — or was it 
the extra pipe of tobacco? — kept me long awake. 
To weary myself to sleep I began a computation, 
thus : 

Three hours a night for three years — 3,600 
hours — 72,000 pages — 180 volumes of solid read- 
ing — a mind well-informed to be added to the dis- 
cipline of the class-room. I felt after that common- 
sense view of the business of life as if Euclid, Ar- 
chimedes and the Jack of Diamonds united in call- 
ing me a fool. 

Another night I supplemented the mathematical 
calculation with a practical meditation on the psy- 
chological line. I observed that the habit of card- 



138 ALONG THE FKIEKDLY WAY 



playing was wearing a rut in my brain. Jacks, 
kings, queens, aces, right bowers, trumps were 
nesting in my mind ; and just as cuckoos occupy the 
habitats of better birds, and either rot their eggs or 
throw out the young hatchlings, so these intruders 
were despoiling me of more profitable thoughts; — 
indeed, of the ability to think profitably on any 
subject. 

I cannot say that at the time I was influenced by 
any higher considerations than those of our expedi- 
ency philosophers, but I determined to break with 
the card habit. Most of my comrades agreed with 
me in the philosophy, and some in practice. Our 
sessions were adjourned sine node. 

One of our number objected to the " moral non- 
sense," the " petty pietism," the " sour puritanism " 
of our revolt. I may tell of the after experience of 
a couple of them. 

Bob was a fellow of rare brilliancy. He 

could loaf most of the term time, and with hasty 
" poling " a week before examination top us all on 
the grade list. But the gambling habit preyed upon 
him, and ultimately induced an insane passion for 
it. Dissipation followed. Ten years later he shot 
a man over the table. 

Another student has since told me a very different 
experience. I'll call him Tom, lest some of his 
grandchildren resent my tale-bearing about their 
revered ancestor. One night a glimmer at his win- 
dow caught the eye of our Prex, whose love for the 
boys made him very alert in watching for any signs 



COLLEGE DAYS 



139 



of their illness or over-weariness in study ; let us not 
say that such symptoms were the only ones he 
searched for, since occasional " rustication " made 
us suspicious that he had other interest in us. He 
knocked at Tom's door. After a little delay the 
lazy string drew the latch. 

" Come in ! " sounded a sleepy voice. Tom was 
studying his big Greek lexicon. 

" Too bad ! Too bad ! " said Prex. " I must really 

speak to Professor about the long lessons he 

is giving. It is a shame." 

Saying which he closed the lexicon, revealing the 
cards beneath. He then opened the closet door. 

" Ah, you have a visitor ! " gently pulling out a 
concealed comrade. " Well ! Well ! Please put 
each other to bed. Good-night, gentlemen ! Good- 
night!" 

Tom expected discipline. Day after day it was 
delayed. It never came in any outward form ; but 
Tom declared to me in after life that no " suspended 
sentence " ever cut the heart out of a criminal as 
that did. The shame of his deceit was like a rusty 
nail in his very soul. He couldn't endure the ex- 
ceeding affability of Prex as they met afterward. 
One day he entered the sanctum of the president, 
and threw himself on his mercy. 

" It's all right, Thomas," was the response. " I 
knew your father, and was sure that a man of that 
stock had only to be made to think in order to 
straighten himself out. Follow the lesson you have 
taught yourself, my boy, and God bless you ! " 



140 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



Years after, when Prex died, Tom — then a noted 
clergyman — went back to the college, sat in his old 
seat in the chapel during the funeral, and cried like 
a child. 

Old-time Prex. 

I love to think of old Prex. I have occasion for 
thinking of him very gratefully which I will not put 
down here, for this is not a book of confessions. 
Many people thought of him as only an ordinary 
man, and wondered how he kept his position so long 
at the head of a distinguished faculty. He was not 
a man of genius, unless the ability to fathom the 
souls of young men and to love them sacrificially be 
genius. He left nothing in print that added to the 
lustre of the institution. He was called common- 
place; but the commonplace in him ran in deep 
channels, and full-flooded a life of great useful- 
ness. 

To this I can testify " by the book." After his 
death, in order to prepare a memorial address, I 
was permitted to sift a few bushels of miscellane- 
ous papers which he had been in the habit of 
throwing into bureau drawers. Many of these 
were yellowed with years and dust-covered, show- 
ing that the modest man had never even gratified 
his reminiscent old age by looking at them. Among 
these papers I found enough to make the reputation 
of a half dozen philanthropists and administrators 
of great affairs. 

This was before the days of our great university 



COLLEGE DAYS 



141 



endowments. It was not yet the fashion for rich 
men to memorialize themselves on the college 
campus with dormitories, chapels and gymnasiums. 
Those were the " days of small things." College 
funds were scraped from the bottom of the treasury, 
or picked off the salaries of the professors. But our 
commonplace Prex managed it in some way so that 
no deserving student ever left college for lack of 
tuition or hoard money. There was presumed to be 
an Association for the Aid of Indigent Students; 
but since Prex's death it has been discovered that 
he himself was not only the president of the Asso- 
ciation, but almost the only donor to its funds. 

The college buildings were out of repair; the 
library and laboratories antiquated ; the professors 
threadbare. Prex took a vacation, roamed over the 
country, and returned with nearly a half-inillion 
dollars; and that at a time when a dollar meant 
more to the donor than four times the amount to- 
day. The old buildings were straightened to the 
plumb ; and the backs of the old professors also with 
the renewed spirit that came to them ; while some of 
the foremost scientists and educators of the world 
were added to the faculty. 

A somewhat extended observation of men and 
movements has convinced me that the real leaders 
of their times have not been those who have gath- 
ered most eclat. I am reminded of a saying of 
Henry J. Kaymond, who during the Civil War, 
when the country was getting tired of Young Napo- 
leons and high-feathered chieftains, asked for the 



142 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



promotion of " first-rate second-class men," men 
who simply did things, and were too busy in doing 
them to spare time thinking about their reputations. 

After the battle of Santiago a public reception 
was given by his home neighbors to the commander 
of the victorious fleet. In replying to my compli- 
mentary address the Admiral pointed to a man in 
the hall, who was unknown to most of us, although 
he resided in our community, and said : " Without 
that man there would have been no victory. He 
provided the armament, ammunition, coal and 
everything pertaining to the fleet. We captains 
walk the decks and give orders, but we couldn't fire 
a shot but for the ability and fidelity of men you 
never hear of." 

The remark reminds me of a distinguished scien- 
tist who had made a discovery leading to one of the 
epoch-making inventions of modern times which 
was christened with his name. In telling how it all 
came about the sage said : " I don't want you to for- 
get my collaborators. They did more than I. They 
verified my facts, tested out my theories, encour- 
aged me by a hundred helps, else the thing had not 
succeeded." 

College Training. 

My college course was very profitable in some 
respects. It certainly taught me to measurably 
command and utilize such faculties as I had, how- 
ever meagerly I may have been supplied with those 
of any high order. From observation of later uni- 



COLLEGE DAYS 



143 



versity methods I doubt if they are an improvement 
upon those of a generation ago in real mental 
training. The studies now prescribed are more ex- 
tensive, but the studying may be less intensive. 
The older processes doubtless failed in the matter 
of breadth. Latin, Greek, Mathematics and Meta- 
physics did not give enough information to create 
inspiration for general study. Many fellows who 
might have been tempted by interesting fields of in- 
quiry to devote themselves to some pursuit credit- 
able to an educated man, became listless over the 
daily grind, and left college without having discov- 
ered their own higher tastes and talents, and 
dropped into some ancestral or convenient business. 

In language we had drill, drill, drill, but nothing 
about the science of language. If only our Greek 
professor had given us something like Max Miiller's 
" Chips from a German Workshop " instead of cross- 
tabulations of synonyms ! If he had only told us of 
the classic beauties that we were skimming over, 
as on some glorious stream between mountain head- 
lands, and allowed us to lift our eyes from our pad- 
dle-blades! If he had given us the rhythm of the 
music, and not kept us on the treadmill of mere 
technique, we might have felt a charm that would 
have lasted a lifetime. 

While in college I learned the rules of rhetoric, 
but I was not made acquainted with a single passage 
of literature through the analysis or commendation 
of it by the professor. When I had passed my for- 
tieth year I turned out some books which the favor- 



144 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



itism of friends and the business capacity of pub- 
lishers made moderately popular; but for fifteen 
years after leaving college I had no dream that I 
possessed either taste or ability for authorship. My 
college curriculum did not help me find myself. 

In saying this I am not criticizing my own Alma 
Mater particularly, for it was one of the best in the 
land. What would I not have given for a professor, 
say in Greek, like one of my college mates who after- 
ward attained that chair? The professor entered 
the class-room one hot day in June. Mopping his 
face with his handkerchief, he said to his students : 

" Gentlemen, isn't it too hot for a recitation in 
this stuffy room? What would you say to an excur- 
sion to the Hill, where we might pursue the real old 
peripatetic method of study? " 

Of course, the suggestion met with a wild out- 
burst of applause that made the room more stuffy 
with a cloud of floor-dust. The fellows literally 
rose to the occasion. The professor, quietly looking 
over his class roll, said : 

"Please be seated, gentlemen! Mr. Jones, you 
will be kind enough to put my remark about the ex- 
cursion into Greek." 

On another occasion the professor excited quite 
an enthusiastic debate over the question whether a 
certain doctrine could be attributed to Plato, — the 
decision depending upon carefully assaying the 
very words of the ancient philosopher. That style 
of teaching went far toward resurrecting the dead 
into a living language, and at the same time it 



COLLEGE DAYS 



145 



quickened the brains of those who had previously 
thought they had no aptitude for the Greek lan- 
guage. 

The man who most helped me in those college 
days was not a professor, only a class pal, although 
he in later years became celebrated as one of the 
foremost instructors in our land and across the 
seas. Not far from our campus was a canal. My 
comrade and I were accustomed to saunter down to 
it after breakfast, beg a ride from the first captain 
who passed, spend an hour going in one direction, 
catch a returning craft, and get back in time for the 
class-room exercise. I recall those canal-boat con- 
versations on the subjects of our lessons and lec- 
tures with one near my own age, full of enthusiasm, 
and withal possessing a genius for those very mat- 
ters in which within five years he was to instruct 
his instructors. The deck of the Mary Ann or Jane 
Smith was as high a seat of learning as I have ever 
looked up to. 

One hears much of the unloveliness of the college 
" grind." For all his laboriousness he is a snail in 
his shell, working only to build out the lobes and 
convolutions of his own brain. He weaves no genial 
fellowships with his comrades, and as no single 
thread, however strong and fair, can compare with 
the beauty of the tapestry of which it ought to be a 
part, he is ordinarily dropped into the social scrap- 
bag. Unless possessed of unusual genius, and so 
able to burrow down deep into the mysteries of 
some specialty and come up again with the precious 



146 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



dust of his findings on his head, he simply buries 
himself beneath it and is not heard from in after 
life. The " bookworm/' like his prototype from 
which the sobriquet is derived, is generally to be 
found hiding away in some literary crack pretty 
well to the back of things. 

There were several such prodigious delvers in my 
class. By sheer toil and tallow they crept far up 
the grade roll. What has become of them can be 
told only by the class secretary, whose duty it was 
to keep a record of the business and babies of the 
rest of us. 

The greatest study in this world for an educated 
man is men, not dead " have beens " nor theoretic 
" ought-to-be's," but those who live about us, who 
help make us, and whom we are to help make. Soci- 
ety is like a tree of which personalities are the 
branches and twigs. We live from one another. If 
one would detach himself and become an air-plant, 
however etherial his purpose, he will probably do 
nothing but fall. 

On the other hand, a study of my class roll shows 
that only those who applied themselves to study 
with measurable assiduity were afterward success- 
ful. The most gifted man in the class was one who 
dissipated in brain work, if not in bodily passion. 
Our professor of rhetoric on reading one of his es- 
says wrote across it the sad warning, — " The writer 
of this has too much ability to waste," — words 
which were prophetic of the man's after career. It 
is not that so much time is wasted in college, but 



COLLEGE DAYS 



147 



that at this formative period the habit of intellec- 
tual concentration is not established. The will is 
just as much of a factor in professional as in busi- 
ness success. No shapeliness of the boat will win 
the race without the trained eye and hardened hand 
upon the helm. I do not recall a classmate who 
afterward reached distinction who was not well 
Avithin the first quarter of the roll for scholarship. 

Possibly my class list is unfortunate as a test of 
this matter. The Civil War disrupted us before 
graduation. Many of the finest fellows fell in the 
Confederate or Federal service. It was a sad day, 
that after the attack upon Fort Sumter, when Ave 
Northern boys gave the last hand-grasp to nearly 
half the class as they clambered into the train for 
Dixie. A few of us met again, sometimes in the 
aftermath of the battle-field. But our class re- 
unions have been sadly small in attendance. 

Personally I think that I maintained my reputa- 
tion as an ordinary man by wasting my time neither 
in grinding for honors nor in lazy indulgence. I 
know that my recitations and conduct sometimes 
bewildered my professors when making up their 
grade lists. Some years after graduation I became 
somewhat intimate with one of them. One day he 

remarked : " , I have often thought that I did 

not grade you right when you were under me." I 
replied, "Professor, I accept your apology." He 
quickly responded, "Hold on, my boy, I am not 
apologizing. I am only berating myself for having 
allowed myself to be taken in by you." 



148 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



Our professor in rhetoric inspired me to do my 
level best in preparing a certain essay. My last 
record with him had put me not far from the head 
of the class. So I grew quite chesty when he re- 
marked of my new attempt, " This will materially 
raise your grade." But unfortunately for the col- 
lege, and especially for myself, the good man died 
before he had made up the grades for the term. The 
essay on which my pride had poised itself so com- 
placently was reviewed by another professor, who 
quietly dropped it into the refuse heap with the 
scribblings of the fag-end of the class. Which of the 
two experts was wiser in his judgment I don't care 
to decide. I certainly learned the valuable lesson 
not to rest one's equanimity and peace of mind 
upon others' opinion of your work or character. Do 
the best you can, and keep away from the bulletin- 
board. 

An Amateur Tramp. 

Among my classmates was one whom we called 
1/ Allegro, for he always brought with him 

" Sport that wrinkled Care derides, 
And Laughter holding both his sides.' ' 

I can recall no single expression or action of 
Ned's that showed great seriousness; yet I sus- 
pected that he was a man of real and perhaps 
over-deep convictions. Like a full-headed spring 
his surface bubbles came from the bottom. At 
times, in the interludes of our mutual banter, I 
would detect a change of his appearance that start- 



COLLEGE DAYS 



149 



led me. His smile would die down too far, and be 
lost in a look of pain, almost of fright. But the 
tragic mask was replaced by the comic at the 
slightest possibility of a pun, a joke or a tickling 
match with any of us. I imagined that his chronic 
feeling when alone might be that of some horrid 
nightmare from which he sought to shake himself 
awake. 

One day he gave us a burlesque oration against 
all civilization, mimicking the manner and tones of 
one of our professors. He compared society to a 
pachyderm's skin or a mollusc's shell that stifled 
the best that was in human nature. He glorified the 
life of the tramp. 

When I objected to this view of life Ned chal- 
lenged me to a practical trial whether it were not 
the happiest lot of man. I accepted his " dare," and 
at the beginning of our vacation started off with 
him for a month of aimless delights. We took in 
our pockets only enough money to prevent actual 
starvation, or to pay passage home in case of acci- 
dent, or if, unlike the Israelites in the desert, our 
feet might swell and prevent our tramping. 

We journeyed one day merrily, sustained by the 
double breakfast we had eaten in view of unforeseen 
possibilities. By the afternoon we were conscious 
of the need of something beside tightening our belts 
and taking a deeper breath of resolution. We en- 
couraged each other to resist the temptation excited 
by feeling the loose change in our pockets, but not 
having as yet cultivated enough cheek to be actual 



150 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



beggars we determined to go supperless. We se- 
lected for our lodging a clump of trees on the bank 
of a pretty stream. 

" Here we can be as happy as the birds," said 
Ned. 

" If only like them we could fill our crops with 
seeds and worms," I pessimistically added. 

Ned danced a jig, and sang the chorus of an old 
song : 

"We'll be gay and happy still." 

" That will do instead of saying grace, since we 
have nothing to eat," added the irrepressible fellow. 
" Who was it that said of Ben Franklin famishing 
on the streets of Philadelphia, 6 He starveth his flesh 
that his soul might regale itself on divine philos- 
ophy ' ? Well see before morning if 6 divine phi- 
losophy ? is not chiefly due to yeast." 

We were looking round for a place to make our 
burrows for the night, like the rabbits, when our 
quiet was broken into by a group of young people 
from a neighboring village who had chosen that 
spot for a sunset picnic. They at first showed an 
intention to dispossess us of our lodgings. But 
Ned's courtesy and mirth shone through his dis- 
reputable appearance like a diamond in the dust. I 
believe he could have walked past a eunuch into a 
sultan's harem with that graciousness of manner. 
His inimitable drollery set the party of newcomers 
into such good humor that the young ladies insisted 
upon our joiDing them. So our first day's experi- 



COLLEGE DAYS 



151 



ence of the hard lot of the socially ostracized class 
ended in a feast of boned turkey, sandwiches, hard- 
boiled eggs, lemon pie, cake and ice-cream, instead 
of the " bitter herbs " of discontent. 

An old proverb says that " the gods take care of 
babes, beggars and imbeciles." " How much wis- 
dom there is in that ! " remarked my comrade a 
couple of hours later, as staring at the stars until 
his eyes blinked he pulled his slouched hat over his 
face and Avith a kick bade me good-night. 

Our second day was equally illuminating as to 
the griefs of the disgruntled trampers on the Broad 
Highway. I tried to induce a canal-boat captain 
to give us a lift. He suggested our driving the mule 
on the tow-path as better fitting our condition. 
But Ned so jollied the man that his wife — who 
sailed with him a la Cleopatra with Antony — ap- 
peared at the cabin door ; a good-looking, motherly 
sort of woman, who had accompanied her husband, 
if not to save him from any perils of the journey, at 
least to guard him from worse dangers of the port 
whither he was going. Whether her face was crack- 
ing at Ned's tomfoolery or her heart was breaking 
at us two unfortunate and homeless lads, I do not 
know; but she made us share the bacon and corn- 
bread, the odors of which poured up by the side of 
the bit of stovepipe that protruded above the cabin, 
as agreeable to our nostrils as the perfumes of 
Araby the Blest which are wafted to sailors along 
that coast. 

Our new friends entertained us as humanely as 



152 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



if they had picked us from a derelict in the North 
Sea. We slept our second night out under an oil- 
cloth that was used to batten the hatchway, each of 
us with a bag of oats for a pillow. It is wonderful 
how one can become reconciled to adversity if he 
will only yield gracefully to the necessities of the 
situation, as a dog relaxes all his muscles to let 
them sink into the unevennesses of what he may be 
lying on. If we cannot pad the world we can pad 
ourselves. 

I had scarcely covered my head with the oilcloth 
when I was charmed by the music of Ned's " We'll 
be gay and happy still," ending with a snore that 
signalled his entrance into the Land of Nod, as in 
olden times a stranger approaching another's 
demesne was expected to sound a trumpet. Next 
morning nothing but our mutual vow of a month's 
poverty prevented our accepting the invitation of 
our host and hostess to voyage with them a hundred 
miles to their destination. Fattened with an oat- 
meal, buckwheat cake and coffee breakfast, and 
with pockets stuffed with sandwiches, which the 
thoughtful " mate " had provided for our lunch, we 
resumed our pilgrimage. We did not envy an un- 
washed monk in his refectory, though Ned declared 
his purpose to take orders in the cowled fraternity, 
if he could find one with sufficiently peregrinate 
rules and regulations. 

The third night we attempted to lodge under a 
haycock adjacent to a country mansion. The gar- 
dener was a stupid fellow who could not appreciate 



COLLEGE DAYS 



153 



Ned's banter, and ordered us off the place. Our 
chatter brought the owner — a gentleman whom I 
often met in after years in his own city drawing- 
room. At first he was inclined to side with his man, 
but after a few moments' talk with us he melted. I 
heard him say to his factotum, " Job, these fellows 
are not hoboes. Let them sleep in the carriage 
house. I'll risk their doing any harm." 

The next morning Job started us out by introduc- 
ing us to the cook, who gave us a fine breakfast in 
the kitchen, which she supplemented with a pack- 
age marked " Lunch," and a message from the pro- 
prietor asking to be remembered to our respective 
fathers, whoever they might be. Ten years after- 
ward I reminded this gentleman of the incident. 
He replied, " I recall it well. You boys hadn't been 
long enough on your escapade to acquire the man- 
ners of the road. I knew from your talk that you 
were college fellows. By the way, what has become 
of your pal? His bright face has haunted me often 
since. I wanted to bring you both into the house, 
but my wife wouldn't let me. She was afraid of 
Confederate spies, though we were nearer the Can- 
ada border than Mason and Dixon's Line." 

The fourth night we slept in a sawmill. It was on 
the edge of a town where I had once been at school. 
I must, of course, see the familiar grounds again. 
While wandering about who should meet us but 
the principal. He recognized me at once. With a 
look of profoundest pity he put his hand on my 
shoulder. 



154 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



" Why ! Why, what has brought you to this 
condition? " I told our story. 

" Well ! Well ! W T ell ! But you know I always 
punished boys for deceit. You must take your dis- 
cipline." 

Said discipline was administered by himself, his 
wife and daughter at a lunch table in their private 
apartment ; — a place which I had never been invited 
to enter during my school-days. 

What a difference between my rigid old martinet 
preceptor and the same man now that I met him 
socially rather than pedagogically ! As we went 
away Ned philosophized on the hardening influence 
of authority. A man might have a natural disposi- 
tion as soft as the inside of a crab, but the habit of 
bossing boys would grow a shell about it. He would 
never be a school-teacher. He'd be a hangman first ; 
for that individual has a chance to jolly up the vic- 
tims before he executes them, which a disciplinarian 
never does. 

Next night we slept in an open field, under the 
big comet of 1861 which spanned from horizon to 
zenith. 

" Star-dust on the outside of your stomach in- 
stead of powdered sugar icing on the inside ! How 
do you like it?" Before I could reply Ned was 
asleep. 

Next day we struck Lake George. That Paradise 
halted our wayward feet. We invested the bulk of 
our reserve treasury in hiring a canoe, and stocking 
it with boiled ham, several loaves of bread and some 



COLLEGE DAYS 



155 



fishing tackle. The farmer of whom we bought 
these articles might have driven a hard bargain 
with us, but I have reason to believe that his two 
buxom daughters threw in the loaves gratuitously, 
and his wife added a handleless frying pan, while 
the whole family waved us bon voyage from the 
bank as we paddled away. 

I have often since visited the Lake ; have put up 
in its palatial hotels ; have cut its opalescent surface 
with the prow of a motor-boat; but I have never 
again found such wealth of enjoyment as we then 
drew down from its skies and fished up from its 
waters. For several weeks we slept on the ground 
with the overturned canoe for our roof, lulled by 
the squealing of hedgehogs and the cry of loons, 

"Till o'er our brows death-counterfeiting sleep 
With leaden legs and batty wings did creep. ' 9 

Showers often drenched us to the skin, but Ned's 
mirth warmed the cockles of our hearts. " We'll be 
gay and happy still " answered the swish of the rain 
and the tossing of the waves. 

We one day had a narrow escape. An elegant 
canoe approached ours. In it were two young 
ladies. My advice was to flee, for after several 
weeks of roughing it — and tearing it — our un- 
changed clothes had become quite as disreputable as 
our unshaven chins. But Ned was game for a new 
adventure, and steered alongside. The ladies 
proved to be old acquaintances in the city. They 



156 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



were spending the summer in an elegant family- 
villa on the lakeside. 

We were safe while sitting down in the canoe. To 
have risen might have toppled us over; but, more 
disastrously than that, it would have revealed an 
indescribable condition of our apparel which would 
have outlawed Saint Francis. Ned came near lying 
when he said that we were putting up at a fisher- 
man's lodge down the Lake. The ladies invited us 
to dine with them that evening. Several friends of 
a rather fashionable set were also to be guests. A 
little dance after dinner and a paddle to our camp 
in the late moonlight ! Good heavens, to our camp ! 
Notwithstanding my agonizing facial protest Ned 
accepted the invitation. He was simply intoxicated 
with the ridiculousness of the affair ; and could no 
more restrain his anticipation of the fun than he 
could help upsetting the canoe in the first shallow 
water, that our apparel might at least have a laun- 
dering before exhibiting it. 

On taking account of our wardrobe even Ned was 
sobered. His shoes were busted. My trousers were 
entirely out at one knee. His were in worse plight, 
nearly torn in twain, his shirt making a signal of 
distress as it protruded at half-mast from his rear. 

We had no means of sending a recall of our ac- 
ceptance of the dinner invitation except a scrawl on 
a soiled bit of paper which we coaxed a fisherman to 
leave at the villa, and which stated that we had 
been suddenly called away, — which was true 
enough; for the call was from our sense of propri- 



COLLEGE DAYS 



157 



ety which suggested that we should propel our 
u camp " several miles further down the Lake, and 
keep a sharp outlook for the approach of swan-like 
maidens. After that we kept to the natives. One 
of these was the oldest inhabitant of that region, a 
man whose memory went back to the days when 
Indian canoes specked the Horicon, bears were the 
scavengers at kitchen doors, and wolves the guard- 
ians of the hen-roosts. Our new friend was by pro- 
fession a bee-hunter. With him we climbed the 
mountains, followed the swarming hosts, looted 
their honey camps. The old man diagrammed for 
us the bays; and at the spot where an imaginary 
line between a gray rock on one shore and a pine 
tree on the other crossed the imaginary line between 
a dark spot on the hillside and a tiny islet just peep- 
ing out of the water, we caught the biggest bass, the 
mere telling of which would swamp my reputation 
for veracity. We swapped our catch for the hog, 
hominy and honey of our patron, and thus commer- 
cialized our friendship to mutual profit. 

We spent a few days in the neighborhood of Fort 
Ticonderoga, and perhaps excited the suspicions of 
the natives that the ghosts of English, French or 
Indian spies were revisiting the scenes of their ad- 
ventures in the flesh. Ned's incessant "We'll be 
gay and happy still " echoed among the ruins. His 
hilarity was both sunshine and bird-song. 

Yet all through these years since, the remem- 
brance of my old comrade has given me the most 
intense feeling of loneliness. It makes the mystery 



158 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



of life wrap me as in a dense fog saturating me to 
the heart's core. Although I had lodged almost 
under his own skin, I never really knew him. Did 
he know himself? Or did he know himself too well? 
Now and then as I watched him at the oars his face 
would become tragic. Were there beneath the glim- 
mering surface of his soul murky depths where 
devil-fish made their habitat and tore him? 

A few years later Ned committed suicide! 

But that attempt for home-bred and home-return- 
ing boys to understand the life, especially the real 
inner life, of the social waif, the industrial outcast, 
the roofless man anywhere ! Our temporary hard- 
ship, with an occasional wet skin or empty stomach, 
only added sauce to the appetite for more of the 
same sort. The fact that, though we were scant of 
ready silver, we yet had indulgent fathers who 
would at any moment of real exigency send bank- 
drafts, prevented our acquiring the least conception 
of the lot of the real tramp or unfortunate, his hope- 
lessness of ever bettering his condition, and the 
slough of bestiality in which he generally flounders. 

From that summer's experience I have never 
taken the least stock in the reports of the well-to-do 
who have gone slumming or nomading in order to 
find out how the " other half " live. The difference 
is that between penury and a picnic. To know what 
a social derelict is one must be one. 

Let me foil this story of Ned with one of a di- 
rectly opposite drift and significance. 

During the decade between ? 50 and '60 the coun- 



COLLEGE DAYS 



159 



try was showered upon by multitudes of fake Ger- 
man students. The unsuccessful attempts at revo- 
lution in the Vaterland had led many patriots to 
migrate. Against these the various little tyrannies 
into which Germany was then divided had been atro- 
ciously severe. Many of these men fled across seas, 
and became our best citizens. Their kindly recep- 
tion here started swarms of impostors. A "poor 
German student " became the signal of wariness 
about our college towns. 

A college mate and I came upon one such derelict. 
He was choring in a barber shop. Hearing us talk 
of our university the man introduced himself as one 
of the guild. I said to my comrade, " Give him a 
volley of Latin. That will test him." My friend, 
shaking his finger at the stranger, declaimed the 
opening sentence of Cicero's oration against Cata- 
line, — "Quousque tandem" etc. " How long, O Cata- 
line, wilt thou abuse our patience? " The fellow ac- 
cepted the challenge in true German fighting spirit, 
and continued the quotation, until our aching sides 
begged him to stop. A rapid-fire attack from 
Homer brought us an equally disastrous defeat. 
The man scanned the lines most beautifully, and by 
his gesticulation and facial expression showed that 
he was en rapport with their meaning. 

This young student had left his university in 
Bavaria between sundown and sun-rising to escape 
arrest for some political offense ; had been a soldier 
in the Crimean War, and had been pursued by aveng- 
ing gods, like another Ulysses, until he landed in 



160 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



New York. He had no money, no training in busi- 
ness, no knowledge of any handicraft, and, for imagi- 
nable reasons, did not care to put himself in com- 
munication with his people in the old country. My 
friend and I helped him as we could out of our 
rather slender purses, and secured him a position as 
instructor in a small school. From this position he 
advanced rapidly. Within three years he was an 
honored professor in one of our universities. Quite 
naturally we were lifelong friends. A little while 
ago I sat before a beautiful memorial window in the 
chapel of that university. The glass was blazoned 
with his name. Very impressive were my thoughts 
as I contrasted this with his name as he first gave 
it to me in a little shop where, forty years before, he 
was doing chores to earn an honest living, and 
watching for an opening to a higher level. 

A Political Puzzle. 

I must here record an incident that occurred 
during my college life, the remembrance of which 
has had a lasting influence upon me. It has been 
like one of those confluent streams that pour into 
and enlarge the flow, and perhaps change the qual- 
ity of the water in a river. 

In the latter part of February, 1861, Mr. Lincoln 
made that eventful journey from his home in 
Springfield, Illinois, to Washington, for his inaugu- 
ration. A group of fellow-students went to a neigh- 
boring city to see and hear him. Notwithstanding 
lie had been for months in the lime-light of the 



COLLEGE DAYS 



161 



political campaign, and that every attainable fact 
of his biography had been paraded by partisan 
favor or prejudice, he was still an almost unknown 
man. His ability as an executive statesman had not 
yet been revealed, and was doubted by many. 

While listening to his brief speech I looked up at 
his tall form as the impersonation of the riddle of 
American history. Was he of presidential timber? 
I was prepared either to disparage or to applaud. 
But Mr. Lincoln said nothing to provoke criticism. 
Was he a prophet who carefully shrouded his fore- 
sight as in the hooded mantle? Or did the " rail- 
splitter " still predominate in him? While the few 
words he said did not display his genius, they awak- 
ened confidence in his character. The listener felt 
that the manhood in him was true and strong and 
consecrated to the great issue before the country. 
Was he homely? I do not know. His face was so 
full of intelligence, kindness, and patriotic intensity 
that I thought only of the soul that illumined it. 
Was he awkward? Were his arms too long, and 
his trousers bagged at the knees? I don't know. 
The grace of his sentiment was in every movement, 
and that gave him a kind of gracefulness which no 
goodliness of form and no art of gesticulation could 
have imparted. For instance, seeing a group of 
ladies gazing at him from an adjoining balcony, he 
saluted them as courteously as Lord Chesterfield 
could have saluted the Queen : — " Ladies, we're in- 
specting one another, and I am sure that I have the 
advantage." I remembered that somebody had said 



162 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



that " the gentle soul is the mistress of gentle 
manners." 

This incident of seeing Mr. Lincoln has a place in 
my biographic recollection because it started a line 
of thought which has strongly influenced me in all 
my reading of history and observation of passing 
current events. How the great movements of the 
world hinge upon individuals, their peculiarities of 
mind and disposition! And how often these men 
owe their pivotal positions, not to themselves, their 
ability, or their ambition, but to circumstances, 
such as their availability in certain emergencies, the 
balance of parties, their chancing at a certain mo- 
ment to be at the spot where the lime-light happened 
to fall, so they became known ; or, it may be due to 
a fact that might seem to indicate their unfitness, 
namely, that they were comparatively unknown 
when others in prominence had excited special ani- 
mosities, which prevented their being chosen for 
leadership. We speak of the "philosophy of his- 
tory " ; but who on earth understands that philoso- 
phy? The hazards of history are more mingled and 
startling. 

This line of thought might lead one to pessimism, 
were it not that the subsequent career of Mr. Lin- 
coln suggested a diviner Providence guiding human 
affairs, and that great men are made wiser than 
they themselves or others knew. 

The Uncivil War. 
As I was completing my academic career the 



COLLEGE DAYS 



163 



Civil War crashed suddenly about us. Far-seeing 
men had anticipated the overflow of the cauldron of 
sectional excitement. Even we boys were prophetic 
in our declamations of what was impending. But 
when at last the mass of intermingled political pas- 
sions actually poured over the rim of the cauldron 
we were as much surprised as we were horrified. 
The fact was that in our souls we had never felt the 
possibility of what we had so certainly predicted. 
Sheep will desert the slopes of the volcanoes when 
their feet feel the tremor; but men with all their 
foresight are often more stupid. We, in those days, 
were scorched with the lava before we heard the 
alarm which our own judgment had sounded. 

One of our professors, who had been a most deter- 
mined alarmist, prophesying the imminence of the 
coming catastrophe, brought the news to the cam- 
pus — "Why, gentlemen, the impossible has hap- 
pened! South Carolina has fired upon Fort Sum- 
ter ! " The youthful enthusiasm of us undergradu- 
ates quickly outran the more cautionary counsel of 
our elders. In spite of the order of the faculty that 
lectures and recitations should not be interrupted, 
the whole body of students went on a strike. The 
bell-rope was detached, the belfry hatched down, 
and from the roof of our main building, together 
with several of our brazen-tongued embryo orators, 
I made my first appeal to the "listening world," 
which world consisted of the students and the entire 
population of the town, who were gathered by the 
excitement. Our professor of physics brought out 



164 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



from the laboratory an immense bar of steel, upon 
Avhich he beat with a hammer the call of class-room 
duty. But we refused to recognize this unhistoric 
substitute for that old bell of authority which had 
called our fathers a century ago. We lashed a stout 
flagpole to the finial of the cupola ; and " Old 
Glory " Avas unfurled. There it remained during 
the entire war, until it flapped its last shreds in the 
gentle breeze of peace. 

The next night after my debut a public meeting 
was held in a large hall of the town, addressed by 
several statesmen of repute. The students became 
impatient of the deliberation and temporizing tone 
of these noted speakers. We took the platform, 
and harangued the crowd in terms which would 
have excited the envy of the ghost of Demosthenes, 
as he recalled his Phillipics against the Macedo- 
nian invaders. We at least equalled him in the 
amount of fire and smoke emitted. No doubt my 
grandmother of revolutionary memory commended 
the spirit of her descendant's patriotism, whatever 
she may have thought of his unfledged and flopping 
oratory. 

Associated with my recollections of these exciting 
days is one of peculiar sadness. Many of our stu- 
dents were from the South ; and among them some 
of my closest companions. They were recalled to 
their homes. The railroads entering Dixie soon be- 
came blocked. Virginians and Georgians and men 
from the Carolinas were compelled to take long 
journeys around by the West. For this their 



COLLEGE DAYS 



165 



purses were insufficient. The Northern boys shared 
their pockets with their unfortunate comrades. It 
was a bitter day when, at the railroad station, we 
took the hands of these fellows, with whom we had 
grown up from boyhood to manhood, and bade them 
Godspeed through the gathering uncertainties. I 
realized then for the first time something of the 
meaning of a disrupted country; but the full sig- 
nificance of it all was not felt until, as the months 
went by, we heard of one and another of that band 
who had fallen upon the field; or as we got a 
glimpse of a familiar face among the huddled 
crowds in our prison camps, or as some captured 
Northern boy felt the coddling of a familiar hand 
on a Southern field. A few of our comrades sur- 
vived the war. Some reached distinction in the 
military command of the Confederacy; but alas, 
how many were starred on our class roll as we 
called that roll at our reunions in after years ! 

As I think of the splendid characters of some of 
these men, as unselfishly devoted to their States as 
we of the North were devoted to the Union, I find 
myself rebelling against the fate which dragged 
them through the poverty of homes destroyed, the 
horrors of mutilated bodies of themselves and their 
kindred, and the untimely ending of many young 
lives so full of promise. 

These experiences have given me an intense 
hatred of war. It is sometimes justified and neces- 
sary, but only when by the carnage there can be 
established such justice and freedom and possible 



166 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



pursuit of happiness as shall make wars in the 
future less liable to occur. This was true of our 
Civil War, when the indissoluble Union of the 
States and Emancipation of the slave class were 
absolutely indispensable to the future peace of the 
land. 



VII 



OUT IN THE WORLD 

Choice of Profession. 

1ENVY the man who has early discovered that 
his abilities and his tastes rnn in the same 
direction ; that what he most likes to do is just 
what he can do best. This gives one a double 
power. It is that of a stream that has both volume 
and sufficient declivity to insure a rush of water. 
Genius for an art or occupation, when accompanied 
by an enthusiasm for its details, is generally the 
prophecy of success. 

But alas for the man whose talents and tastes run 
in opposite directions ! Taste without talent for its 
pursuit leaves one a mere dilettante ; talent without 
taste for its exercise makes one a machine. 

In my college days I found myself thus badly put 
together in my mental make-up. I likened myself to 
an elephant that had a trunk at either end — or more 
likely a tail — and didn't know which way to go. I 
suppose that there was something oratorical about 
my voice, manner or rhetorical glibness that led the 
fellows to select me as their spokesman on some 
show occasions. But oratory was my especial 
abomination. I never could declaim. To get up 

167 



168 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



before others, and give voice, gesticulation and 
facial expression to a sentiment written by some- 
body else made me feel like the ass in lion's skin. I 
could psychologize by the hour over Hamlet's " To 
be or not to be " ; but to spout the words would be 
as uncomfortable for me as to submit to an opera- 
tion for the dropsy. Similarly I hated to formally 
debate for practice or in competition for honors, 
though I could wrangle with the worst of my class- 
mates on the slightest provocation. To pronounce 
an oration — I had rather be choked. For an hour 
before I had to make the slightest exhibition of my- 
self " stage fright " gripped me from my knees up- 
ward. It brought on headache, indigestion — in- 
deed, physicked me thoroughly. And so it has been 
for sixty odd years. 

Yet — and here's the misery of it — I could talk. 
When " screwed up to the sticking point " I suc- 
ceeded on the rostrum. Here was my talent, if such 
it might be called; at least my knack. How I 
wanted to dig a hole and bury it ! Jonah could not 
have hated his mission to Nineveh worse than I re- 
belled against what seemed the call of duty to 
preachify on any topic. Yet upon graduation I 
found myself en route for a profession in which 
tongue and cheek are by some regarded as the es- 
sential adjuncts of study. I began my flight like a 
bird gifted with a goodly pair of wings but with 
rheumatic joints. And the rheumatism has never 
left me. 

I had a classmate who was similarly afflicted. He 



OUT IN THE WORLD 169 



was the best speaker of us all, but sometimes almost 
wished that he had been tongue-tied, so that one 
professional avenue be closed to him. He entered 
the ministry of his denomination. In one of his 
letters referring to his choice he wrote, " Passion is 
said to be destiny. Is it so? Or is some apparent 
adaptedness ? — How much in the dark we are ! And 
yet the fearf ulness of a mistake ! " 

But he made no mistake. As I write the news 
comes to me that " dear old Sam " — I think his 
ghost will be better pleased with that designation 
than that of " the Reverend Doctor " — has just died, 
honored for his work during more than a half 
century. 

Would I to-day choose the same profession I then 
chose? Doubtless ; for I can see no other in which 
I could be more helpful to my fellow-men. Yet I 
have gone to my public duties "like the quarry 
slave scourged/' and so it will be until my last 
speech raises its welt on my soul. 

In such an experience of — I will not say ability, 
but rather adaptability — and taste warring within 
one I am not alone. Men in all occupations lament 
it. The most genial of our American poets used to 
complain to me that his daily life was to " howl like 
a hyena for six hours in the Stock Exchange, then 
go to his library too tired to think." What might 
not that man have been if his rare ability as a 
financier and the needs of his large family had not 
diverted his soul from the banks of the Elysian 
stream ! 



170 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



A young friend graduated from Annapolis. Dur- 
ing his " Middy " days he showed rare ability in 
naval science, and was ticketed for early advance. 
But he hated the sea, and especially hated war, and 
soon left the navy to enter civil life. When the 
Spanish War broke out, from simple sense of duty 
he volunteered his service. His heroism and naval 
skill at Santiago won him high honors duly ac- 
corded by Congress. What a sea-captain he would 
have made if he had had as much love for the waves 
as for his country, and had possessed the real Vik- 
ing soul! 

Dr. was one of the foremost surgeons of 

the land before the day of anaesthesia. He often 
spoke of his sickening at the sight of blood ; of how 
the making an incision in another's flesh was almost 
as painful as if he were cutting his own. Before a 
serious operation he would sometimes fall upon 
his knees and cry, "O God, why must I do this 
thing? " Yet he knew that he could do " this thing 99 
as perhaps no other man could do it, and he said u I 
must." He knew his anatomy so thoroughly, and 
by force of clear grit could so steady his nerve 
that the knife went without error along the thin 
line between life and death. For forty years he 
did "this thing," until nature made his hand to 
tremble. He then spoke of the " saving grace of 
palsy." 

I can appreciate this. I have dreaded an audi- 
ence so that I could almost pray for laryngeal par- 
alysis. This has proved a great hindrance in all my 



OUT IN THE WOELD 171 



career. I have declined many invitations to address 
my fellow-citizens upon topics with which circum- 
stances made me familiar. I have shirked my duty 
simply because overborne at the moment by this 
temperamental, but wholly irrational, shrinking; 
and have afterward been cudgelled by my con- 
science for my cowardice. In Boards of Direction I 
frequently allow action to be taken without con- 
trary argument even when I feel that my colleagues 
are clearly in the wrong, — and this from a mere 
animal timidity to get upon my feet. 

To compare little things with great, I comfort 
myself for this temperamental weakness by recall- 
ing that John Bright always came to breakfast com- 
plaining that it was a chilly day if he had to make 
a speech before night. A distinguished pulpit or- 
ator told me that once in his early ministry he en- 
gaged to preach in a country church; but that, on 
approaching the building, he was seized with such 
fright that he ran away and hid himself in the 
woods until the hour of service had passed and the 
farmers had driven home. But how he could preach 
when he had to ! 

I have often wished that I enjoyed hearing myself 
talk, as some of my professional neighbors evidently 
do. A friend tells me of the thrill he experiences 
when in the swing of his oratory. The gladness 
when the flashing eyes of his audience show that he 
is holding them en rapport with his own sentiment 
and emotion, he declares is better than a feast with 
the houris in a Mohammedan Paradise. The ec- 



172 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



stasy of Ms rhetorical flights must be something 
similar to that of an aviator soaring above the 
crowds who gaze gaping at his skill. If it is a man's 
business to speak, how providential that the wag- 
ging of his tongue pleases him, as the wagging of 
his tail pleases a dog! 

While on this topic of ill-put-together brains and 
heart I may tell of a " happy find " on the part of a 
friend of mine. He was a born artist. With a few 
strokes of his pencil he would depict any object 
about him, a flower, a bird, the face of a man, and 
even the character that lies so thinly veiled back of 
the countenance. How he rollicked in his amateur 
art ! To this delight was added a passionate love of 
nature. From the spider's web in the corner of the 
room to the white summer clouds that crawled over 
the sky the visible universe was his playground. 

His bete noire, however, was business, whatever 
form it might take. To be a drummer, a solicitor of 
trade was his special abomination. Yet he had an 
ingratiating manner that was worth a fortune, and 
the need of " turning the penny " drove him into life 
insurance ! It happened in some way that a few of 
his offhand amateur sketches got into a magazine, 
and about the same time one of his breezy pen-pic- 
tures of a woodsy scene was hung in a gallery. He 
received an overture from a publisher for more of 
what he called only his " inky spasms." He found 
that he could support himself with pencil and pen. 
Soon he became one of our best paid delineators. 
His enthusiasm for what was now his life-work was, 



OUT IN THE WOKLD 173 



as the word signifies, an en-theos, an inspiration 
both of vision and of joy. He was as happy — well ! 
as one of his own pictures. And that is saying 
much, for all America has enjoyed them. But think 

of , who could transform a bit of cardboard 

into a sylvan stream with the sprites dancing 
through its sparkling ripples, or create the illusion 
that a robin was twitching its tail because its mouth 
was open, or make his brush tell that it was five 
o'clock of a June day instead of three o'clock in 
July — spending his own and your time in inducing 
you to save your earnings for the sake of your un- 
born children, and incidentally pocket a commission 
for himself! 

The Wife. 

As these are the reminiscences of an ordinary 
man, I pass over many things that were peculiar to 
my individual circumstances, and keep to the road 
of common experience. A very commonplace thing 
happened to me, — I fell in love. 

All young men — all full men — do. I am enough 
of a realist to hold that femininity, like a condition 
of the atmosphere, say the subtle influence of the 
springtime, affects a healthy young fellow before 
the etherial substance of femininity has material- 
ized into the definite feminine. One of the most 
complete victims of the passion was a comrade who 
never married simply because he never discovered 
the embodiment of his ideal. He talked incessantly 
about " her/ 9 even wrote sonnets to her eyelashes 



174 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



and slipper buckles, angel-ized her as thoroughly as 
Dante did his Beatrice in Vita Nuova, and with the 
same purpose : 

"Non perch ' io creda sue laude finire, 
Ma ragionar per isf ogar la mente ; ' ' 

not because he imagined he could tell all her 
charms, but he discoursed only to ease his own 
soul. The sheet-lightning of "the eternal femi- 
nine" always flashed about my friend, though it 
shot no bolt to strike him. In which respect, as in 
the merit of his lines, he and the great poet were 
quite diverse. And I too. 

It is said of Telemachus that he was saved from 
Cupid's arrows by Minerva, the goddess of Wisdom, 
who threw her shield before his breast, whereupon 
Venus and her enfant terrible took flight — Mi- 
nerva, being wise, did not interfere in my case. 
If I tell about this adventure I know that I run 
the risk of being discredited by popular novelists 
and their readers; for I cannot recall in modern 
romances of the grand passion any description of 
female character resembling that of the woman who 
won my heart, or the record of any experience of 
captivated swains that parallels my own. 

This surly criticism of bookmakers will reveal the 
reason why I have no interest in the ordinary love 
story. Give me a yarn of swash-buckling, intrigu- 
ing, courtiering, vagabonding, or of adventures on 
the high seas. They entertain me, because I don't 
know enough of these things to dispute the veri- 



OUT IN THE WOELD 175 



similitude of the descriptions. But regarding love 
affairs I am expert, and therefore skip the pages 
that romancers and their unmated readers gener- 
ally regard as most delicious. I appreciate the poet 
who said, " I long to talk with some old lover's 
ghost who died before the god of love was born." 

" I am going to introduce you to a young lady 
whom you will like, unless you are a duller fellow 
that I have credited you with being/' said one of my 
old-time instructors whom I was visiting. 

I glanced at the Professor's wife, — one of the 
most beautiful, queenly, motherly, big-sisterly 
women that ever sacrificed herself to become the 
caretaker of a grubber of linguistic roots. 

" Professor," I replied, " I am prepared to fall in 
love with the lady at sight, on the recommendation 
of a man who himself has demonstrated his good 
judgment of the sex." 

The Professor's wife frowned. "I warn you, 
young man, not to attempt such flattery with the 
lady in question, or our introduction will prove 
useless." 

I met Miss X in company of a bevy of her com- 
panions. She was not so beautiful as Miss A, nor 
so vivacious as Miss B. Miss C could talk more 
glibly of art and literature, and Miss D more flat- 
teringly asked questions about a young man's pro- 
fessional ambitions. Miss E smiled more oppor- 
tunely and winsomely. Any one of these would 
have attracted more attention from a fellow during 
the first half-hour. But somehow before the even- 



176 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



ing was over I felt better acquainted with Miss X 
than with the others. Did she possess a clairvoyant 
power of reading my thoughts so that from the 
start our conversation was a little deeper than the 
surface conventionalities? 

I have met and admired many women gifted with 
the ability in a few words to draw out a man, to 
assay his tastes, to catch the key of his prevailing 
disposition and sentiments. This is a valuable ac- 
complishment for any woman who is called upon to 
entertain in society. It makes her the best of 
hostesses, especially appreciated by a new acquaint- 
ance given, as I was, to bashfulness. I call it an 
accomplishment; for, while some have an intuitive 
talent in that way, it is generally an acquired tact, 
and belongs to the high art of social courtesy. 

Miss X did not draw me out. I came out as natu- 
rally as a pansy expands in the sunshine. From 
that first evening I felt perfectly at home with her. 
I appreciated Buddha's feeling when he first saw 
the woman who was to be his wife. He imagined 
that she must have been his companion in some 
former state of existence, on the tree or in the den. 
Miss X's mind and mine seemed to me like two 
streams that, however different their sources, when 
they touch flow in the same channel. Our ideals lay 
in the same direction, although I realized from the 
first that hers were higher, purer and more health- 
ful than mine could ever be without her tuition. 

As our acquaintance grew I found that in intel- 
lectual opinions we often differed. She frankly dis- 



OUT IK THE WORLD 1T7 



sented from some of my views, even thought them 
preposterous and told me so; but our moral judg- 
ments concurred; — at least they did after she had 
fully revealed her own. In the glow of her con- 
science I clearly saw what was, or ought to be, in 
my own. We had the same root convictions on 
matters that count for character. 

She was wiser than I. Maybe I saw more things, 
but she saw things in a clearer light, and convinced 
me that I often saw only mirages. I could out-argue 
her, but in the end she got the decision of the court 
of common sense. By some short-cut of intuition 
she reached the vital point before I did, and awaited 
my coming along afterward, and with a smile that 
meant "I told you so," though she never uttered 
such teasing words. 

Of course, I wasn't in love with her, — yet. I only 
felt a restfulness when in her company, such as no 
other woman or man ever gave me. When tired or 
worried with professional work my feet were drawn 
to her home. We talked about nothing strictly per- 
sonal, certainly nothing sentimental. Neither 
sought to intrude within the other's life, but natu- 
rally we walked together in many common paths. 

I had a problem; how account for this spell? 
When I tried to solve the problem which I felt was 
entangling me I discovered a luminous centre to it ; 
it was herself. I had to confess that my interest in 
her was more than interest; it was attachment. 
Would I dare to tell her that? Not yet. I once 
broke a beautiful vase with my clumsy handling. 



178 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



The perfume of our friendship was too precious for 
me to risk spoiling it by any unwarranted obtru- 
siveness. I hoped that the Fates who spin our life 
threads would intentionally twist ours together, 
and waited patiently for their denouement. 

Very happily for me I at length discovered that 
she was interested in me as an individual specimen 
of the genus homo; that she really cared to know 
what I was doing because it was I that did it. Al- 
though I knew that she despised an egotist, she let 
me talk about myself. Her kindness led me to tell 
her things that I told no one else, and I got my re- 
ward in her undoubted sympathy or wise encour- 
agement. My foolish notions she frankly corrected ; 
but I took no more umbrage at it than did her cro- 
chet-work when she unravelled the false stitches. 

Now in all this there was at first not the least 
experience of sex fascination. I thought of her, not 
so much as a woman, but as a kindred soul; like 
what a man might have been to me if only he had a 
soul ten fathoms deeper than any man's soul ever 
was. 

One day I told her what I thought of her ; how I 
prized her companionship. If I had thought out my 
words beforehand I would in all probability have 
said less. But that little Winged Imp tricked me, 
and made me say I know not what. But it must 
have been just the right thing, for she replied that it 
made her very happy to know that she could be help- 
ful to me. And somehow the word " always " 
passed between us. Maybe neither of us said it. It 



OUT IN THE WORLD 179 



was, perhaps, only telepathic. Maybe nothing was 
said for the next ten minutes. My memory of that 
time is awfully mixed. To the end of our married 
life she insisted that we had no engagement; that 
the ring was an afterthought. Of one thing I am 
sure, there was no scene worth reporting; no sur- 
prise, for it was as if it had always been intended to 
be so; no coyness, she was too frank for that; but 
as I looked into her face I saw a new light there. I 
knew it to be a woman's love ; but what a woman's 
love really means it took forty years to find out; 
and even yet the story has not been told. I wonder 
at it as I do at the sunrise, the starry skies, and 
what God may be. 

One may call this too prosaic. I prefer prose to 
poetry in contract deeds. There was nothing to be 
sentimental about. The real sentiment had been 
running very deep for months, deeper than either of 
us knew until that moment. We were not interested 
in its mere ripples. 

Nearly half a century of such a woman's love! 
Do you wonder that I don't like "love stories"? 
Geese cackling when angels are passing overhead. 

Downs and Ups. 

After entering my chosen profession I attained 
in it an early success. This statement may seem 
to invalidate the claim of my story to be that of an 
ordinary man, since it is the sad fact that most men 
reach a position of abiding competence only when 
their failing physical powers cease to supply the 



180 ALONG- THE FRIENDLY WAY 



zest for good living, or some malady denies them the 
ease for which they have labored, or, it may be, that 
bereavements have broken those companionships 
which had become essential to their enjoyment of 
almost anything. But a man may be very ordinary, 
both in his natural calibre and in the ammunition 
of his acquirements, and yet make a long shot be- 
cause of some commanding height upon which cir- 
cumstances have placed him. 

This was my case ; though I must confess to hav- 
ing had some preliminary practice which was more 
like shooting from a ditch into a mud-bank. I had 
endeavored to secure a certain position — a very 
lowly one for a man with sheepskin credentials, — 
which, however, would bring me a temporary half- 
livable income, but perhaps serve as a fulcrum for 
something higher. I must begin somewhere. I 
bid for the situation with my best address. Indeed, 
with the pride of a recent graduate I thought I was 
doing a favor to the place by showing a willing- 
ness to accept it, using expensive flies to catch a 
bullhead. But after my most fascinating endeavor 
those to whom I applied turned me down in a 
manner that made me suspect that I was lacking in 
even ordinary ability. A man whom I had re- 
garded as a blunderhead was selected in preference. 

My zeppelin conceit was punctured; my self- 
confidence floundered. My ideals, my ambitions, so 
patiently and hopefully wrought for years, tumbled 
into the scrap-heap. If I could not get upon that 
lowest rung of the ladder why try to climb higher? 



OUT IN THE WOELD 181 



Only one who has felt it can appreciate the sense 
of humiliation and depression at my defeat. 

Out of that " slough of despond " I was suddenly 
lifted, aerated and reinflated. I received an un- 
expected invitation from a distant city to accept a 
position the emolument from which was ten times 
as much as I had prospectively lost. The reputa- 
tion I acquired by having been selected for this 
place gave me easy opportunities for advancing fur- 
ther, for " nothing succeeds like success." 

Only in after years did I learn the secret of my 
good fortune. It had been due entirely to a friend 
whose kindly offices I did not know of until after 
his death. He was a man of great influence, upon 
whose judgment others depended, who had con- 
ceived for me what was almost a fatuous affection, 
and, "the wish being father to the thought," had 
imagined that I was possessed of an ability that I 
am sure I did not possess. 

Not knowing his hand in the matter, I was per- 
haps unduly encouraged. Yet the stimulus came 
at a needed moment to counteract the self -deprecia- 
tion occasioned by the failure of my previous at- 
tempt. I always think of the two experiences as 
providential counterparts, — the black and the white 
in the picture. 

A letter from an old college chum, congratulating 
me on my good luck, contained a healthful sug- 
gestion which at the time I regarded as only a bit 
of pleasantry, but which, knowing as I did his 
candid Jiabit of mind and his honest friendship for 



182 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



me, led me to some very helpful thinking. Said my 
correspondent, " In the world's great banquet the 
dessert sometimes comes first; if so, it is apt to 
spoil one's relish for the less savory viands that 
follow." Poor fellow! He found it so. He was 
a brilliant man, at the time entering upon a very 
popular career, which was soon cut short by dis- 
tressing circumstances that hastened the inroad of 
a fatal disease. On hearing of his death I reread 
his old letter. Perhaps in the ill-ordered menu of 
life I had begun with the sweets instead of the soup. 

Notwithstanding my prosperity, I would fre- 
quently try to take stock of my real qualifications 
for my position. In sombre moments I was in- 
clined to think that the gentlemen who had so un- 
ceremoniously rejected me in my first venture might 
have been wise. I often felt hypocritical in accept- 
ing the flatteries of success, and became distrust- 
ful of myself, not unlike a small boy who has 
climbed too high a tree, and knows that the branches 
are thin and brittle. If I could have done so I 
would gladly have climbed down to a lower limb; 
but responsibilities were continually boosting me in 
the other direction. 

The consequence of this was, no doubt, helpful 
in a certain way. It put me upon my mettle. It 
toughened my energies. It drew into activity 
traits of mental character that in a less important 
position might have remained undeveloped. But, 
on the other hand, my ever-pressing duties allowed 
me no time to cultivate elements in my nature which 



OUT IN THE WOELD 183 



are more fundamental to character, and essential 
to one's deepest satisfaction and moral force. I 
felt like a mollusc growing more shell than inner 
substance. I was overtaxed to accomplish external 
things; out of breath in trying to keep up with 
myself. 

I am convinced, after somewhat intimate ac- 
quaintance with prominent persons, that this ex- 
perience is quite common. Many of our best men 
are making overdraughts, not only on their phys- 
ical strength but on their mental ability also. 
They have not time to secure their " deposits " by 
quiet thinking, reading, and especially by the ex- 
ercise of their more spiritual qualities. To gauge 
one's real abilities, and refuse the flattery of seem- 
ing opportunities ; to maintain leisure to keep one's 
heart warm, and resist many calls of mere outward 
ambition; — this is a prime maxim for those who 
would make the most of life. 

Other's Hands on Ours. 

Let me revert to my friend who thrust me so far 
up the ladder of success. My gratitude is not 
lessened by the conviction that either he lacked 
shrewdness in sizing me up, or his love for me 
tempted him to garnish the plain truth about me 
when talking to others. 

How much we are indebted to the good will of 
other people for our prosperity! A friend who is 
disposed to make our interests his own will prove 
a real providence in human disguise. Syrian lads, 



184 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



finding themselves mutually congenial, have a cus- 
tom of making what they call Brotherhood in God, 
a vow of helpfulness which lasts through life. The 
compact may not be known to others, but where one 
goes the other follows with at least a wary eye and 
a ready hand. If one falls the other lifts. Is one 
prosperous, the other shares. Has one an enemy, 
he has also an invisible shield. Perhaps there is 
an allusion to this custom in the oriental proverb, 
" Two are better than one." I once heard a good 
sermon from " Make friends," the rest of the text, 
"of the mammon of unrighteousness," being left 
off. 

In this I am not advocating the current habit of 
young men who are always looking for a " pull." 
Nobody will go far out of the way to pull you unless 
he has his own personal interest to serve, or unless 
he is deeply interested in you. In the former case 
he will be apt to drop you when you become too 
dependent on him, as a certain climber of the 
Matterhorn is accused of having cut the rope that 
tied his comrades to him when their weight or 
clumsiness endangered his own foothold. 

Yet much of our social, business and professional 
life is determined by " pulls," as gravitation or af- 
finities hold the world of things together. " Thine 
own friend and thy father's friend forsake not," 
was a piece of advice that the worldly-shrewd Solo- 
mon thought well to give to the young men of his 
day. We are reminded of the saying of Shake- 
speare: "We are born to do benefits. O what a 



OUT m THE WOELD 185 



precious comfort 'tis to have so many like brothers, 
commanding one another's fortunes ! " 

Two of my young friends were comrades in 
school. One aimed at business life ; the other chose 
a professional career that necessitated a university 
course. Their boyish love for each other never 
flagged. An unformulated compact of mutual de- 
votion held them when their paths diverged. The 
business lad shared his meagre earnings to pay the 
advanced school and college bills of his yoke-fellow. 
The other returned as unstintedly his encourage- 
ment and his after professional counsel. Knowing, 
as I do, the secret between them, it is a happy sight 
that of these two now silvered heads, the one a 
university president, the other the president of a 
flourishing corporation, hobnobbing by the fire- 
side. 

A prominent merchant of considerable wealth 
one day asked me to select from my acquaintances 
a young man of good head and proved character 
who needed financial aid, proposing to set him up 
in business. 

" I do this," said my friend, " in grateful remem- 
brance of old Mr. ," mentioning the name of 

a magnate of the street in the generation just past. 
" I was a poor boy clerking in a small grocery store. 

Mr. , who lived near by, was in the habit of 

giving me a kindly word when passing. One day 
he lectured me rather severely for standing so much 
of the time on the store stoop with my hands in my 
pockets. When I told him there was little to do 



186 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



inside, he told me to use my brains and make busi- 
ness outside. I explained that I was not the pro- 
prietor of the shop and could do nothing. 6 Then 
start for yourself,' said he. He forced upon me 
the loan of enough to buy several wagon-loads of 
potatoes that the farmers were bringing daily into 
town. ' These potatoes,' said he, 6 have eyes, and if 
you will look through them you may find a fortune 
for yourself.' It was a small venture, unlike that 
of yesterday when I sold a hundred thousand 
bushels of wheat stored in my elevator down by the 
river ; but without that first job I couldn't have done 

the last one ; and without Mr. 's kindly deed 

I would have done neither. Now I want to do some- 
thing like that for some other young fellow. I 

think old Mr. 's ghost would like to see me 

do it if it ever comes back to haunt the market, I 
don't know my man ; so will let you select him." 

I picked out the lucky man, and with a result ap- 
proximately similar to that which he had nar- 
rated. 

I am very happy to record that on various occa- 
sions I have thus played the mutual friend to others 
who were not previously acquainted. There are 
several prosperous men in our land who, if they 
should read the above incident, might, except for 
the part played by the potatoes, think that I am re- 
ferring to them. I have been the secret agent of a 
certain Broadway saint who used surreptitiously to 
keep students in the university, to make amends, as 
the benefactor said, for having himself neglected to 



OUT IN THE WORLD 187 



obtain an education. The beneficiary in this case 
never knew to whom he was indebted. Young men 
are not generally aware how much personal sug- 
gestion and endorsement by others must be credited 
with their advancement. Nor are they advertised 
of the older eyes that watch them lest we make a 
mistake in our recommendation. I repeat then, 
" make friends ; " but be exceeding careful to merit 
the friendship. 

I was once particeps criminis in bringing about 
a marriage. John and Mary had been engaged for 
many years ; but there was a gulf that even Cupid's 
wings could not fly across. Mary had to keep house 
and care for an invalid mother. John scraped his 
knuckles to the bone in gathering enough to pay 
the interest on his farm mortgage. A summer 
neighbor said to me : 

" That J ohn and Mary business is getting on my 
nerves. It's a shame that such a devoted couple 
should live apart while their hair is getting gray. 
Let's fix them up ! " 

John's mortgage was taken care of by my friend 
in such a way that he need have no further solici- 
tude about it. A plan was laid for the comfort of 
Mary's mother without her daughter's incessant at- 
tendance. Mary was induced to visit my friend at 
his city home. John was sent for in post-haste. 
He arrived with no suspicion of what was in the 
wind. An hour later the couple were confronted 
with a minister and two witnesses, and before they 
were fairly out of their bewilderment they were 



188 ALONG^THE" FRIENDLY WAY 



man and wife. The surprise so took away John's 
breath that he forgot to kiss his bride after the 
ceremony. 

I am now looking out from my window toward 
the " sunset and evening star." Around me lies an 
interminable stretch of dun and yellow hills, like 
much of my life, so filled with self-service that I 
don't care to remember it. Here and there out 
yonder are glowing splashes of autumnal tint, like 
Moses' bush that burned and was not consumed. 
The sunset glow sets them on fire. How they 
fascinate the eye! These remind me of the inci- 
dents of helpfulness in which I have had some little 
part. They are the brightest things in the whole 
landscape of recollection. They seem to belong to 
the land beyond the horizon. 

My M entor. 

One of the most helpful friends of those early 
days was a man who was commonly regarded as 
having himself made a colossal failure in life. That 
was, perhaps, true, if the dimensions of his failure 
were measured solely by the amount of material for 
success which he possessed at starting, but which 
he apparently builded only into a heap of debris. 

My friend came of the most virile brain stock in 
America. One of his near relatives has honored his 
inheritance by gaining almost the biggest plume in 
our romance literature. Another was known seas- 
over as a philosopher, having as crystalline a mind 
as ever worked through the mud of metaphysics. 



OUT m THE WOELD 



189 



In this distinguished family my friend had himself 
been the " young hopeful." 

He was an honor-man in college. He began his 
career as a preacher, but was too erratic for his 
fraternity, too abstruse in style for the crowd, 
and because of his eccentricities utterly misunder- 
standable by the community. Fortunately he mar- 
ried a fortune. Such persons ought to be born to 
wealth or else espouse it, otherwise they would 
starve. 

He soon dropped all professional obligations,— or 
rather they dropped away from him. He retired to 
his Tusculum, read omnivorously and digested the 
pabulum of the world's thinldng like an intellectual 
mastodon. He was a walking encyclopaedia, and as 
keen and judicious a critic as I have ever known. 

He used to visit me once a week. How I wel- 
comed that big Gladstonian head and those Dar- 
winian eyebrows as they thrust themselves into my 
library ! He would throw himself unceremoniously 
into my .biggest armchair, just for the sake of sav- 
ing me the trouble of offering it to him. He would 
then pull up another chair for his feet, mop his big 
forehead — for he was always literally hot-headed 
even on zero days. Then he would open the sluice- 
way, and give me a reservoirful of what he had 
stored in his mind during the last seven days. 

Perhaps he would throw a book upon my table. 
"I have brought you something worth knowing. 
It would take you a month to read all this stuff with 
all your other work. Don't try to. I will just give 



190 ALONG THE FEIENDLY WAY 



you the gist of the matter in five minutes, if you 
don't interrupt me. I have turned down the leaves 
where you ought to read yourself. Chapter nine 
is splendid. Skip the next fifty pages. They are 
hash. I'll take the book next time I come. I want 
you as a youngster to get it while it is hot, and 
while people are talking about it. You know that 
we waste half our intellectual existence by post- 
poning the mastery of subjects until we have more 
time. We never get any more time than we delib- 
erately preempt because of some necessity. Time 
is sucked out of the breast of eternity by the mouth- 
ful. There is never any to spare. As life goes on, 
unless paresis sets in, the more the brain finds it 
must do if it would keep its own respect. Leisure ! 
Belts of calm where there is no sailing. When you 
strike leisure you had better sink. Most people do. 
What you acquire rapidly under the spell and spur 
of the high seas will serve you best." 

Sometimes we would walk together like Mentor 
and Telemachus. Ah, those hours with my peri- 
patetic philosopher! We went down the avenue, 
across the ferry, into the country. Neither a 
crowd nor a scene less interesting than a murder 
could jostle him off his centre when once fairly 
astride a theme. 

" My boy," he would say, gripping my arm and 
my attention tightly, " my boy, be an independent 
thinker, — that is, after you have thoroughly read 
the best that other people have thought about a 
subject; but not before, or you will find yourself 



OUT IN THE WOELD 191 



like a bird trying to fly with one feather. Think 
abont what the world is thinking abont. You will 
find yourself as useless as a mole if you follow only 
your own head in choosing your way." 

A medieval saint once said to another, " I put my 
soul within your soul." My friend was perhaps not 
of the kind to give love and life for another. His 
retirement from the work of the community showed 
that he was too self-absorbed for self-sacrifice. 
But he did put into my brain some fine scraps of 
his own scholarship, some rare bits of critical wis- 
dom, many ideas always erudite though sometimes 
fantastic. He was at least a Platonic lover of my 
soul. That is all that Virgil was to Dante. If 
my friend took me down into some purgatorial 
depths of doubt he never left me there without at 
least his own bright interpretations of the curious 
shapes I saw among the shadows. 

A Tumble and Rebound. 

For some years the sun shone brightly for me, 
and obeying the ancient maxim I hastened to make 
hay, and supposed that I had securely garnered 
it. 

As I now review the years I find that the real 
mile-stones of life are not outward events, however 
exciting and important we may have regarded them 
at the time, but rather the inward experiences pro- 
duced by these events — or more likely by minor 
happenings. I now judge those halcyon days, when 
the whole world seemed to revolve in time with my 



192 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



pulse-beats, to have been less significant, and cer- 
tainly less helpful, than darker times. The biggest 
stones don't go into steeples and minarets. In 
showy life there is no broadening and deepening of 
foundations. 

So I found it. While a commanding position 
gave me a larger view of the world, and an ample 
arena drew out many energies that an humbler 
sphere of endeavor would not have developed, I now 
see that my personality was being narrowed. I 
suspected myself of harboring that meanest of all 
the parasites that nest themselves on a human soul, 
an aristocratic feeling. I began to look upon posi- 
tion as belonging to my natural rank. I can under- 
stand how princes come to think themselves as in- 
vested with some divine right; and how readily 
millionaires usurp the places of the "meek who 
shall inherit the earth." As my purse expanded 
my sympathies shrank. My honors so glared in my 
eyes that the haloes of better people were not so 
evident. 

But Providence carries a whip for "the proud 
man's contumely " and the " insolence of office." 
An enterprise into which I had put my best talent 
(and my biggest conceit) suddenly toppled. I was 
made to realize that man's fortune is built on an 
earthquake belt, and that only souls with wings 
can securely rise from the demolition made by that 
titanic power known in Christendom as "the god 
of this world." I discovered that I must grow some 
new qualities of soul, some virtues that had in them 



OUT m THE WOKLD 



193 



a levitating force, if I would escape the wreckage 
of life. 

To this resolve my wife helped me. Her cheer- 
fulness exorcised my vexation with myself and my 
wrath at others. Her smile at it all — back of which 
was her deeper intelligence of things — dissipated 
my disgruntableness, as the sun draws up the mists 
and fogs from off the marshes. 

After about a year spent in contemplation of my 
ruins, lamenting the fallen columns and marred 
statuary, I metaphorically put the whole heap of it 
into the lime furnace, cleared the ground and began 
again. Taking account of my real stock — which 
is always inside and not outside one — I discovered 
that I had not been hurt at all. I discounted my 
own moral paper, charged things up honestly in 
the columns of profit and loss, pronounced myself 
to be decidedly solvent, and opened a new set of 
books — a system of double entry which I commend 
to all young men — namely, First, Myself in account 
with the World; second, Myself in account with 
Myself (including my wife, whom I retained as 
special partner in all matters of conscience and 
duty). 

Now I can say with Eabbi Ben Ezra : 

"What I aspired to be, 
And was not, comforts me." 

My mishap had done nothing more than blow the 
shucks off the real corn. As I think of the petty 
pomposities and prides of life engendered by mere 



194 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



outward prosperity, I am reminded of an orange 
tree that stood on my neighbor's front lawn. I 
wondered how it grew such luscious-looking fruit in 
our rigorous northern climate. A high wind dis- 
closed the secret. After the blow had passed, the 
ground was littered with oranges, each one with a 
hairpin for its stem. Our showy estate is only 
something stuck on to us. It doesn't grow out of 
our very selves, and its loss really takes nothing 
from us. Adversities are God's stone-colored doves. 
They bring as many blessings as the white ones. 

Near one of our homes was a great marsh. It 
was observed that the water bubbled up through the 
mud and rushes, instead of draining away in the 
ground. Wise men took the hint. The spot was 
converted into a reservoir, and for a generation 
supplied the town with sweet water. If I should 
ever be reincarnated with my present consciousness 
and memory, and set to live again on the earth, I 
should be inclined to invest in certain marsh-lands, 
that is, in disappointments with the bright bubbles 
in them as the best paying stocks. As I may not 
return, I cheerfully give the " points " to my 
younger friends. 



VIII 



MEN AND MEN 

« What is Man? » 

HOW quickly the most kindly human feeling 
can be turned into deadliest hate ! When 
I began to write these reminiscences one- 
half of the civilized world was in as ferocious 
grapple with the other half as were ever two bull- 
dogs. Yet, a few months since, we were burning 
the incense of our boasted new humanity in the 
temple of peace at the Hague. The brute in us is 
so untamed by our culture that at any moment in 
the flush of hot blood it will tear with its claws what 
it has been holding in the most velvety embrace. 
Lord Bryce can hardly be disputed when he de- 
clares that in native disposition we are unchanged 
from the men of the Stone Age. 

A counterbalancing fact is that men may as sud- 
denly drop their hatreds at the suggestion of mutual 
interest, if not at the touch of a higher Spirit (I in- 
tentionally capitalize the word Spirit) which is 
ready to invade humanity from without and above. 
To this conviction I was led by a series of incidents 
that greatly impressed me as I was starting in life. 
In the winter immediately following the Civil 
195 



196 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



War I was a passenger on a small steamer going 
down the Potomac. A sudden cold snap had 
blocked the river with ice. As we could not go for- 
ward it was necessary to keep the boat in a con- 
stant side-swinging motion, else we should be held 
fast in the rapidly freezing water. The passengers 
were arranged in a long line, and rushed quickly 
back and forth across the deck to keep the craft 

rocking. General , a noted Union officer, 

commanded at one end, while the redoubtable Ex- 
Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, who had 
recently given his sword to Sherman, played cor- 
poral at the other. Johnston, the rebel, would cry, 
" Forward, boys, for the Union ! " as we dashed to 
starboard. "About face! Now for a regular 
Pickett's charge at Gettysburg ! " shouted the Union 
officer as we rushed to port. A jollier or more 
congenial crowd never met. After all, I thought, 
the man in us is bigger than the brute in us. It 
will leap as quickly, and, being more persistent, will 
dominate in the end. That conviction is abundantly 
confirmed now, as I recall the four years of the 
Civil War and the half century of peace that has 
followed. 

The next Sunday after this episode I worshipped 
in the old Presbyterian Church of Kichmond. The 
edifice was as sad a reminder as any shot-torn 
battle-flag. The walls were stained with many a 
leak. Patches of plaster were pendant like the 
scabs of already healed wounds. The floor was un- 
carpeted; the pews uncushioned and broken, re- 



MEN AND MEN 



197 



calling the fact that for years they had been used 
for hospital beds for thousands of wounded men. 
Hymn-books and Bibles were torn and coverless, 
suggesting the wadding used at the battle of Spring- 
field in the Revolution, where brave old Dominie 
Caldwell led his congregation on to fight with his 
famous " Give them Watts, boys ! " Some of the 
leading men of Richmond were arrayed in " butter- 
nut " cloaks, made of old army blankets by cutting 
slits for the heads and arms. 

The pastor, Dr. Moses D. Hoge, a man who had 
lost none of the respect of the North by his fidelity 
to his Southern flock, was in the pulpit. At the 
close of his sermon he made an appeal for the 
repair of the edifice. My Northern companion on 
the trip, who for four years had been as good a 
hater of the Confederacy as any man with " blood 
in his eye," emptied his pocketbook into the col- 
lection-box, and accompanied his donation with an 
additional pledge written on a blank leaf of a letter 
he had in his pocket. I never worshipped God with 
more heartiness, as, without a word of bitterness 
or complaint for the Lost Cause, the preacher led 
our devotions in a prayer to the Prince of Peace. 
The new loyalty — that of man to man — had already 
conquered the hated war-spirit, and I thought only 
of Him whose " banner over us is love." 

After service, although we were strangers to 
every one, we were most cordially greeted. With 
old-fashioned hospitality several of our gray- 
cloaked fellow-worshippers accompanied us to our 



198 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



hotel. The following day we could not refuse an 
invitation to dine with one of our new-found 
friends. The white silver gleamed from the mirror- 
like mahogany as in Colonial Days. But my chair 
was rickety, and the walls of the room were covered 
with sadly faded paper, relieved only by some family 
portraits and a couple of Confederate flags that 
supported the mantel. 

I shall never forget my thoughts — or, rather, my 
impressions, for I could not think distinctly — as 
the next day I sat for an hour in the ruins of the 
Confederate " Fort Hell " at Petersburg, while my 
companion was similarly musing, fifty paces away 
in what remained of the Union " Fort Damnation. " 
On comparing notes afterward we found that our 
themes were identical, — " What sort of a creature 
is man anyhow? " 

That question hooked itself into me with a barbed 
point as later I watched the masses of black hu- 
manity, half -clothed or entirely naked, sunning the 
shivers out of their flesh like so many pigs in mire, 
on the banks of the James. 

What is man? That black lump curled around a 
hawser-post on the dock is a man. So he is only a 
man who stands yonder, his face almost tragic with 
the intensity of his love, his eyes deep-set as if in- 
tent on penetrating to the heart of the problem that 
lay wrapped in that black skin of the slumbering 
hulk at which he was gazing. Armstrong planning 
Hampton was only a man. While in after years 
addressing audiences at Hampton or Tuskegee my 



MEN AND MEN 



199 



mind has seemed to stand still, fascinated by that 
old memory : Armstrong and the other man ! 

So now, with my intelligence almost stunned with 
the problem of the warring nations, I cannot drop 
my faith that the sense of fraternity will ultimately 
conquer the hates of mankind. The divine in man 
is greater than the beast, although it may take deep 
cuttings to reveal the hearts of men to themselves. 

Men Misunderstood. 

An early residence was at the capital of our 
State. Among our familiar neighbors was the 
household of the Governor. He was one of the 
deepest-brained politicians of his day. Like many 
men of his craft he was noted for his self-control. 
His face, to one who would try to read his thoughts, 
was as immobile as an iron mask. He was an 
ardent partisan, but his voice never vibrated with 
the intensity of passion except when making a pub- 
lic address. He was a sort of political Enceladus, 
who lay quietly under the mountain until it pleased 
him to shake himself, set the earth quaking and the 
lava running. 

The Governor one day showed me the draft of a 
proclamation of Thanksgiving he was about to issue 
for the fall of Richmond. But his manner evinced 
no more trace of jubilation than did that of a pro- 
Southern minister who on the subsequent Sunday 
had to read it to his congregation. A few weeks 
later I was awakened before dawn by a summons to 
the Executive Mansion. The Governor sat in the 



200 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



main hallway wringing his hands in uncontrollable 
grief. His face was tear-stained, and marred by a 
night-long anguish. Seizing my hand he cried like 
a lost child : 

" Oh, the horror of it ! They have killed our 
President ! They have struck down Abraham Lin- 
coln ! Abraham Lincoln ! " 

The Governor's wife and a few intimate friends 
tried in vain to quiet him. In that inner circle 
there Avas revealed another man than I had sus- 
pected to be in him. He was after all one of 
deepest sensibilities, tenderest sympathies and 
passionate love. His affection for his Great Chief 
was tragic, sacrificial, self -immolating. 

But a startling change came over the Governor. 
Prominent citizens began to pour in. Instantly the 
iron mask was again on his features. His voice 
was steadied and emotionless. Turning to his 
private secretary he said in a business tone : 

" Countermand the Thanksgiving Proclamation. 
Prepare one appointing a Day of Humiliation and 
Prayer." 

To his Adjutant, " Better leave the protection of 
this house and the public property to the regular 
police. Soldiers about it might alarm the people." 

To the crowd swarming in, " Yes, gentlemen, the 
news is very sad; but there is no need of any ex- 
cited feeling. Please go home and quiet your neigh- 
borhoods." 

Some one in the crowd passing out remarked, 
" The Governor is a man of no feeling. Such a 



MEN AND MEN 



201 



day! And he is as cool as an iceberg. No doubt 
scheming his advancement to a job higher even 
through this awful calamity. " 

I that day learned a lesson that has been of great 
value to me through life; namely, not to gauge 
men's characters and dispositions by their formal 
actions. Eemembering this, I have made many 
most trustworthy friends of those whom others 
distrust. 

I once lived in the neighborhood of the man who 
was called the Warwick of American politics. He 
was the Boss before that word had acquired its ugly 
commercial taint. Governors, Senators, Assembly- 
men and contractors were supposed to live by him. 
The raising of his finger was as potent a signal for 
the triumph or sacrifice of a political aspirant as 
was the " Thumb up " or the " Thumb down " of the 
Eoman Emperor at the arena. If vivisection had 
revealed a bit of steel mechanism in the place where 
his heart was supposed to be, it would have con- 
firmed the opinion of his enemies. 

Being, as I was, not a political adventurer, but 
only an ordinary neighbor, I discovered in this man 
almost a womanly tenderness. I had frequent 
occasion to act as his almoner where he would not 
have his charities known, lest they might be thought 
to smack of some political intent. He was patient, 
like Job, to seek out the causes he understood not, 
that his benisons might not be bestowed unworthily. 
If his political position made him domineering, his 
recreation was kindness. My choice picture of this 



202 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



adamantine man is one photographed on my mem- 
ory by the light of his own genial face, as he one day 
held the hand of my little child during a walk, and 
entertained him with grandfatherly prattle, while 
would-be political magnates made their fawning 
obeisance as he passed. 

I was once reminded of this man as I watched 
General Sherman, the hell-maker in Georgia. He 
was in Tiffany's store in New York and lifted in his 
arms a tiny girl that she might see the glories that 
sparkled in the cases below. The old warrior was 
as gleeful as the child. 

Judge I asked me to be with him one morn- 
ing in court. He had to pronounce sentence of 
death on a horrible murderer. Crowds in the street 
were waiting to cheer the awful words when it 
would be announced to them that the villain was 
judiciously started on his way to perdition. The 
Judge was noted as one of the most remorseless 
defenders of justice. On the bench he was as " cool 
as a hangman." After the sentence he retired to 
his anteroom, and, quivering with an emotion no 
sign of which had been shown on the bench, he said 
to me, " I wanted you to be with me to-day as a 
friend. There are some things too solemn for a 
man to do alone. It had to be done; but I would 
rather have given my finger to the flames than have 
uttered those words, 6 Hanged by the neck until 
dead.' I shall not sleep for a week." 

In my directory of elite souls I have the names 
of a number whom I call my " good hypocrites " ; 



MEN AND MEN 



203 



men and women who hide their virtues as others 
hide their vices. Indeed, I believe in the sub- 
cutaneous kindness of most people. If " beauty is 
only skin deep," so is ugliness. Those from whom 
we expect the least may give us most. Simonides' 
warning about the ill-armed knight at the tourna- 
ment is often timely : 

"Opinion's but a fool who makes us scan 
The outward habit for the inner man. ' ' 

While I am in an old man's garrulous mood let 
me parenthesize an incident or two, for my memory 
is as full of them as the old chestnut tree out yonder 
is full of burrs with the mahogany nuts inside of 
them. 

Mr. C , the head of a large mercantile busi- 
ness, was a stern disciplinarian. His heavy eye- 
brows and flashing black eyes were the terror of any 
delinquent in his employ. He once informed me 
that some one in his office, he could not tell who, 
was dishonest. He was advised to engage a de- 
tective, and ferret out the culprit. After a few 
days the police agent announced that he was near 
to the offender ; another day would have him in the 
toils. The employer said to me, " I propose to dis- 
miss the detective. I will pursue the matter alone 
from this point." 

On my expressing surprise he said, " I am un- 
willing that a mere police agent, who presumably 
has no human interest in the case, should know the 
guilty party. Maybe he is some young fellow who 



204 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



is in his first temptation. A stranger's knowledge 
of his guilt might ruin him ; it might be a blackmail 
club in future years. But if I find him out by my- 
self, I may be able to help him. Who knows? " 

Mr. C himself took up the clues, and suc- 
ceeded. He never revealed the personality of the 
offender to me. " Just to think of it ! " he ex- 
claimed. " One of my boys — my office boys ! Why, 
I love those fellows as if they were my own chil- 
dren. I have taught them the business. I would 
have promoted this very man." 

He sent for the culprit. When charged with his 
guilt, the man made frank and full confession ; then 
bowed his head on the desk and moaned, " Oh, my 
wife ! My wife ! " 

Mr. C assured him that so far his crime was 

known only to himself and God, and that there was 
no need that even his wife should ever know of it. 
He accompanied the young man to his home that 
night, fearing, as he told me, that the tragedy in his 
soul might find some expression in his manner. 
He afterward became their frequent visitor. He 
learned incidentally that the wife supposed that 
their income was much larger than it really was, 
and had not practiced economy. When she dis- 
covered the exact size of the family purse she 
showed a marvellous skill in domestic science, and 
made both ends meet without the loss of a crumb of 
comfort. 

When I expressed to Mr. C my amazement 

at his method of dealing with the case, he bent upon 



MEN AND MEN 



205 



me those Sinaitic eyebrows as lie said, " You and 
I are Christians ; and isn't that the way the Great 
Master has dealt with us sinners? He finds us out, 
and lays the charge of sin right before our con- 
science, but, at the same time, He shields us. Why, 
even God Himself doesn't know — that is, He for- 
gets — our iniquities." 

Yet Mr. C was generally regarded as an al- 
most harshly just man ; one who had only withering 
scorn for every sort of iniquity; true salt of the 
earth, but with overmuch of pungency in it ; a light 
of the world, no doubt, but with the heat element 
in the flame somewhat exaggerated. How wrong 
that estimate ! 

Reputations Often Mislabels. 

I have found the same mistake in the popular 
judgment of men of great benevolence, who have 
been thought to be close and selfish. In collecting 
a fund for a certain charity I was warned not to 

waste time with Mr. D , so I passed him by in 

my solicitations. But the gentleman himself called 
upon me, and without so much as the mildest hint 
on my part volunteered the largest sum in the entire 
contribution. 

"Andy W is as close as a wrapped mummy, 

but the shrewdest stock speculator we have," was 
the way my friend Z spoke of him. One day I was 
sitting in the latter's office when Andy came in. 

" Say, Z, I want you to go into this copper deal 
with me." 



206 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



"All right, Andy. But just what is your game? 99 
" Only this/' replied the hard-hearted man ; " you 

know they want a new wing to the hospital. If 

we lose on this spec, we will say nothing about it. 

But if we win, we will give one-half of the swag to 

the hospital. What do you say? " 
Z said nothing. 

" They said " that Mr. E had the habit of 

picking up pins. His vest-ends were full of them. 
That he shaved his new-born chickens for the sake 
of their down. But many a time he has talked to 

me like this : — " You, , know more about 

local charities than I do. Here's a ten (or, per- 
haps, it was a twenty or a fifty) . Some pickpocket 
must have left it there in my pocket when trying to 
rob me. Just drop it where it will do the most 
good. No ! No ! No accounting for it, or I won't 
give you any more." 

Mr. N had built quite a palatial residence. A 
chronic complainer pointed it out with some re- 
mark about the lazy rich. I was glad to reply, 
" You know it was N who stayed all night with 
poor W , when he died down at the police sta- 
tion where they took him after the accident." 

The conversation changed. 

" As people say," said a neighbor, " Mr. L is 

hard-fisted. I once tried to get the better of him in 
a deal, but he skin-flinted me. Yet when I was in 
hot water, and the financial hair scalded off me, 
L offered to loan me f 10,000 without security." 

I wish my memory would catch only such inci- 



MEN AND MEN 



207 



dents; but unfortunately it hooks onto some un- 
savory fish. 

The Hon. was president of a huge cor- 

poration which employed thousands of men in the 
lowland marshy suburbs of one of our cities. The 
distress of these workmen, most of whom received 
the lowest wages while the company was boasting of 
its dividends, was so terrible as to excite the pity 
of the entire community. As chairman of a certain 
benevolent commission it became my duty to corre- 
spond with the magnate. He replied to me most 
graciously and patronizingly. He even cited the 
parable of the Good Samaritan to show the high 
Christian motives which inspired him. It was a 
great comfort for him to think that he had always 
taken care of his needy neighbors. No one whom 
he knew was ever turned away from his door. But 
those people whom I had referred to, he said, were 
not his neighbors. He didn't know one of them. 
His home was not in those suburban swamps. 
Thank God! He lived among the delightful hills 

of County. Wouldn't I come up and see 

him? 

This man's idea of neighborly duty was that it 
was limited to his porter at the lodge, his guests, 
and a handful of wistful-eyed children who wished 
him a Merry Christmas. The thousands who toiled 
for him in the reeks and damps, whose lives were 
held by him as truly as if in rural savagery he 
grasped their scalp-locks, who fattened him with 
their blood, — these were not his neighbors ! 



208 ALONG THE FEIENDLY WAY 



I did not go to visit him. I am sure that his 
delicious viands would have choked me. 

But another incident in this same collection cam- 
paign took away the bad taste left in my mouth by 
this man's invitation. 

A day or two later I was strangely moved to call 

upon Mr. J . I knew of no special appeal that 

my pet charity could make to him except the far- 
fetched one that its work was done in the State 
where he resided. But those who would collect for 
charity soon learn that they must thrash all waters, 
and let their line drift into all sorts of unpromising 
holes. 

" That's so," said Mr. J , when I broached 

the subject. " That's so ; we must stand together 
in these matters. There are so few of us who ap- 
preciate the want about us that unless we act there 
will be awful suffering this winter. I thank you 
for calling to tell me how I might help. Sorry that 
I have so little. If this check for five thousand will 
be of service you may take it ; but only on one con- 
dition, namely, that you will be just as frank with 
me in letting me know of future need in the same 
direction." 

Such men as this latter are the real support of 
almost all our public charities. 

Yet some dribbles come from other hands. My 

friend, Professor , was out soliciting for an 

endowment fund of some sort which was needed in 

his university. He was directed to Mr. , say 

Jones of Cedar Street. " You will find him some- 



MEN AJSTD MEN 



209 



what eccentric, but very liberal, and especially fond 
of your college, I think." 

The following day the Professor returned. " Ec- 
centric ! I should say so. I couldn't get a polite 
word out of him." 

" Try him again," was the advice. " Perhaps he 
is only testing your patience to see what sort of a 
beggar you are." 

The Professor made another attack, determined 
to be persistent. He succeeded. " There," said he, 
" that's fine ! " throwing a check for a thousand on 
the table. "But I'd as soon pick the teeth of a 
snapping-turtle as to tackle such a job again. Ec- 
centric! Why, he is the most blasphemous man 
I've ever run up against." 

" Impossible ! Impossible, my friend ! Mr. Jones 
is the chairman of our Y. M. C. A. devotional com- 
mittee. Let me look at that check. 6 Simon C. 
Jones ! ' You've got on to the wrong man. You've 
struck that diamond dealer in Cedar Street. A 
thousand dollars from him for a Christian Uni- 
versity ! Oh, yes, we will tell that in Gath. How 
did you do it? " 

"Why, I remembered what you said about his 
being peculiar, but all right in heart. So I just 
sat there until he thawed out. After a while he 

scowled at me. ' Take that, and go to with 

your college.' I took it, but didn't go where he 
directed me. I came to you. Can't you add a five 
hundred? I'll sit it out with you even if you swear 
at me." 



210 ALONG THE FEIENDLY WAY 



Obstinacy or Wide-eyedness? 

I early found in my intellectual make-up, or in 
my chronic disposition, something that would prob- 
ably prevent my ever being very popular. While I 
always tried not to be disagreeable to others I made 
no effort to agree with them in their opinions. In- 
deed, the fact that "everybody was saying so 99 
made me shut my mouth, unless I opened it in ques- 
tioning the common notion. 

Possibly this was somewhat due to stubbornness, 
but I may be pardoned if I pass a less harsh judg- 
ment upon myself. I was given to halting my 
opinion upon almost any subject until the other 
side was heard from, and, if there were no other 
side in immediate evidence, to tentatively make one. 
Thus I tried to test the strength of a proposition, 
as they do a force in physics, by the amount of 
resistance it can overcome. 

Now, if one aims to be a mere philosopher, taking 
no part in passing human affairs, but only studying 
them as an astronomer watches the stars, this habit 
of mind might be commended. It is certainly in- 
teresting. But it will not do for one who must 
make his way with the throng, and who needs the 
help of popular momentum to reach his destination. 
It will be especially disastrous to any one who 
covets present leadership among his fellows. That 
requires that he " keep his ear to the ground " to 
detect the way the host may be tramping; an ex- 
ploit that I fear my ears are not long enough to 
t accomplish. 



MEN AND MEN 



211 



I maintain, however, that the attitude of judi- 
ciously — that means slowly — inspecting all proposi- 
tions from both front and rear is the duty of 
educated men who aspire to be most helpful in the 
long run to the community, the school, the sect or 
the party to which they belong. It makes the dif- 
ference between a statesman and a mere politician, 
a thinker and an advocate, a scholar and a dogma- 
tizer, a true preacher and a babbler of " smooth 
things," a prophet and a time-server ; although one 
who adopts the better role should make up his mind 
to wait patiently for only posthumous recognition. 

I was not a trimmer; for I was never on both 
sides at once. A friend who proved his friendship 
by giving me " faithful wounds " perhaps came 
nearer the truth when in a nettled mood he said I 
was mulish ; for one never knows how much of his 
quadrupedal ancestral stuff may still be unelimi- 
nated from his spinal marrow. 

My early grubbing through the history of phi- 
losophy, of science, of religion with its multitudi- 
nous parasites, and of whatever pertains to the 
growth of the thought-weed in the human brain, 
made me suspicious of popular notions whether 
they attained the dignity of creeds or were only 
fads. " Vox Populi " has often been a landslide 
stopped or diverted too late by the rock-rib of 
" sober second thoughts " among the wise. When I 
was a wee tot I deliberately broke one of our family 
heirlooms; and, since "the child is father of the 
man," I must have inherited an iconoclastic bent 



212 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



to smash what Bacon called Idols of the Tribe, the 
Den, the Forum and the Theatre. 

I lived in an Abolitionist community, and was 
well cudgelled for my lack of humanity in main- 
taining that John Brown was not more than forty- 
nine per cent, right in making the Harper's Ferry 
raid upon the peaceful citizens of Virginia. 

I was not a Democrat, but won the local reputa- 
tion of being a Copperhead by suggesting that 
McClellan should be credited with the victory of 
Antietam. 

I could not have been elected a pound-keeper 
after having publicly expressed an opinion that the 
Carpetbaggers in the South were really carrying 
political and social dynamite instead of copies of 
Magna Charta for distribution among the Blacks. 

While Garfield was lying mortally wounded at 
Elberon I attended an indignation meeting called 
to damn the name of the assassin Guiteau. The fire 
of popular wrath as it found vent from the mouths 
of several speakers was insanely diverted into a 
lava stream of curses for the New York Senators 
who opposed Garfield's purpose to keep all patron- 
age in the hands of the Executive. Then, as the 
fury of the people waxed hotter and hotter, as that 
of coals when closely packed, the tide of vengeful 
oratory was headed for Vice-President Arthur, who 
in the event of the death of the martyr would be- 
come our Chief Executive. When I was called upon 
for a speech I protested against this personal 
cruelty to Mr. Arthur, and suggested the unfairness 



MEN AND MEN 



213 



and danger of thus creating a popular prejudice 
adverse to the administration of an untried man 
who would need and should have the confidence and 
support of the nation until he himself should forfeit 
it by unwise action. I was hissed by some in the 
crowd. 

In these special cases subsequent events showed 
that I was at least an infant in the family of which 
it is said "wisdom is justified of its children." 
But there were other matters regarding which 
judgment may still be suspended as to whether my 
stand was mere obstinacy or, like Balaam's ass, I 
may have really seen an angel in the way. 

I have no doubt that this habit of " watchful 
waiting " until one sees the real drift of facts be- 
fore taking a public stand may be carried too far. 
There are issues in which we must act without full 
information, or we will not act at all. A bad crop 
is better than the sterility of an unsown field. 
Napoleon would drive against the enemy, and cor- 
rect a dozen blunders of judgment while en route. 
There may be in movements for reform too much 
" Safety First," as in Holland they make a guards- 
man walk deliberately ahead of all trains passing 
through the villages. 

But I remind myself of the fact that I am writing 
neither a history nor a philosophy ; only the gossip 
of a soul trying to understand itself and its vary- 
ing moods that have been engendered by the prick- 
ing of outward happenings. For my own good I 
have been, perhaps, too slow in forming my judg- 



214 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



merits ; have tried to be too " wide-eyed,' ' to borrow 
one of Carlyle's expressions, and attempted to see 
around corners, often in roads that I was not called 
to go. But I could not help it. I needed " blinders " 
to force me to see only straight ahead, and not shy 
at shadows of things that came in from the side. 

A comrade in the Adirondacks complained of the 
guide who was building the dinner fire with nothing 
but brambles. He went off to seek better wood. 
When he returned with a goodly load the dinner 
had been cooked — and eaten! Metaphorically I 
have sometimes been that man. 



IX 



SOME MYSTERIES 



A Cloud Over the House. 

"1 \ OR some years our home had known of sorrow 



only as the youthful Buddha knew it, in- 



* terpreting the wild music of the wind- 
touched silver strings stretched across the gourd on 
the window-sill, — 

. . . "We make no mirth, 
So many woes we see in many lands, 
So many streaming eyes and wringing hands/ ' 

But at length the inevitable entered our door. 
Death claimed our eldest boy, a bright lad of 
thirteen. 

As the case attracted the attention of medical 
scientists at the time, I may relate some par- 
ticulars regarding it. 

For many weeks the lad passed through the vari- 
ous phases of what was diagnosed to be meningitis 
down to what seemed to all at the moment to be the 
fatal end. Then, strangely, from the very brink he 
came back to apparent health, except in one sad 
respect, — he was totally blind. Some mysterious 
assault of the terrible disease had destroyed the 
vitality of the optic nerve. 




215 



216 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



But the loss of outward sight was partly com- 
pensated by a marvellous quickening of his 
mental faculties. He especially astonished all by 
his feats of memory, although before his sickness 
he had been the ordinary plodding schoolboy. So 
vividly did he recall places and things that he had 
little need for what he called his " long eye " — a 
cane which he carried to prevent his striking 
against obstacles. His sense of direction was as 
keen as that discovered in the homing instinct of 
birds and other animals. Whatever from earliest 
childhood had made the slightest impression upon 
him was reproduced with the accuracy of the phono- 
graphic disk. A poem of some length which he had 
heard but once, and that seven years before as a 
larger scholar had declaimed it, was repeated with- 
out the loss of a word, and with mimicry of the 
intonation and emphasis of the original speaker. 
Abstract arguments which would have been utterly 
unappreciated before his affliction, and, indeed, 
which I myself could follow only with closest atten- 
tion, elicited from him the shrewdest criticism. At 
one leap he had mentally covered the distance be- 
tween childhood and manhood. 

The phenomenon attracted the attention of ex- 
perts. One of the most distinguished of these 
ascribed it to the abnormal increase of the tem- 
perature of the brain. This opinion was based upon 
large observation of similar cases, and opened a 
large field for speculation. May genius be measured 
by the thermometer? Edison has said that his re- 



SOME MYSTERIES 



217 



markable inventions were not the result of inspira- 
tion, but rather of perspiration. Did he refer to 
brain-sweats as well as to industry in research? 
Mahomet we know was a little hot-headed. So 
were Bonaparte and Byron. Shakespeare's brain 
must then have had a fever furnace at its base to 
have produced such a variety of intellectual values. 
Alienists have noted different degrees of heat among 
the different phrenological bumps of their patients. 
May this account for certain great musicians, 
artists, poets, inventors, who in respects other than 
that of their one peculiar talent were positively 
lacking in mental force and ordinary moral bal- 
ance? 

As I watched my boy, walked with him as almost 
my equal — for I could lead him only with my phys- 
ical, not with my mental, eye — I felt that we most 
commonplace people are lodged on the brink of the 
preternatural, and that a very little thing may tip 
us over into it. Hence clairvoyance, mediumistic 
powers, and possibly that far gaze that we attribute, 
not knowing what else to call it, to inspiration. 

After some months of life within the Border 
Land our child passed beyond, and was lost to our 
sight in the glow of the Great Horizon. Several 
days before his death he was in apparent comatose 
condition. He was deaf to all sounds, blind to all 
signs, and scarcely responsive to touch. Only the 
throbbing pulse and the heaving breast indicated 
life. 

One of the attendant physicians was given to 



218 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



materialistic speculation. He and I were quite 
intimate, and spoke together in utmost frankness, 
so that there was nothing obtrusive in our conver- 
sation even at the bedside of the patient. 

"Your boy is now practically dead," said he. 
"At least life is at its lowest possible ebb. The 
physical exhaustion has destroyed consciousness. 
Heart-beats now mean no more than the growth of 
the hair after death. Nothing vital remains to him ; 
only the mechanism, or perhaps the chemistry, of 
the body is still active. Pardon my question; but 
you and I have so often discussed this subject that 
I will ask it; — can you believe that when the last 
drop of the physical current has ebbed away he will 
resume consciousness? You may be right in be- 
lieving that after death God will revive the soul. 
But you see, speaking scientifically, that it must be 
revivification, and not continuance of life." 

The physician had scarcely gone when something 
occurred that gave a better answer to his query 
than I could have invented. 

The child's lips moved. His mother's ear caught 
the faintest whisper — " What day? " 

It seemed a mere illusion ; but the words were re- 
peated distinctly. Life physical was undoubtedly 
at its lowest ebb, but the soul was alert. In the 
long dark, soundless, feelingless interval of time he 
had had no means of keeping count of the days. 
Neither dawn nor nightfall, neither morning saluta- 
tion nor good-night kiss, no sensation of a hand 
smoothing his brow nor the taste of water on his 



SOME MYSTEEIES 



219 



lips, had helped him mark the passing time. Yet he 
knew that it had passed; and while we were dis- 
cussing his unconscious state his mind had been 
in highest consciousness, watching for some chance 
opening of the shutters of the senses to communi- 
cate with us. 

How could we answer his question? He could 
not hear, nor see, nor was his body responsive to the 
prick of a needle. While we were pondering, his 
mother happened to press quickly a spot on the in- 
side of his hand. The faintest smile came to his 
face. There was no discernible movement of his 
features, only a soft light seemed to shine through 
them from within. I cannot describe it ; it was as 
if the soul were pure light and had briefly returned 
and looked out upon us from his face. 

He repeated the question, " What day? " and as 
his mother pressed his hand he said slowly, taking 
time to recover strength after each syllable : 

" One— Yes— Two— No." 

What could he mean? Mother's quick intuition 
solved the problem. He wished her to signal in to 
him through pressures of the hand. 

" What day? Monday? " 

Two strokes — " No ! Tuesday? " 

Two strokes — " No ! Wednesday? " 

Two strokes — " No ! Thursday? " 

Two strokes—" No ! Friday? " 

Two strokes—" No ! Saturday? " 

One stroke — " Saturday ! New Year Day ! Happy 
New Year ! " 



220 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



The child lingered on the Border Land another 
day, making no sign except at the very last when 
the lips were laden with the inherent conrtesy of 
his spirit, and he whispered the word " Thanks ! " 
Then he fled away. 

How often I have pondered the thought " Phys- 
ical life at the lowest ebb, but spirit life at the 
flood! " Was it not so? The boy, in his blindness 
and deafness and almost total lack of sensation, 
realized that he was shut in from all communica- 
tion with the outer world as truly as was ever a 
prisoner within the thick walls of his dungeon. 
He discovered, however, that there was one tiny 
outlet not entirely closed, — that sensitiveness of his 
hand, — and watched it. He invented an alphabetic 
code as truly as Morse did — and invention is said 
to be the highest act of our mental faculties. He 
signalled his queries, and got his answers. His 
brave, loving heart sent out its warm farewell as 
the sunset's glow now comes through the opening in 
yonder window blind. 

" Physical life lowest ; mental life highest ! " 
And when that tiny avenue of touch was closed all 
life vanished? I do not believe it. 

Yet I am aware that the case is not conclusive. 
If I were disposed to rank materialism, and espe- 
cially if I had written a book on the subject and was 
driven by the pride of being consistent, I could raise 
some debatable questions. But not being a mate- 
rialist I gladly turn my eyes toward the light that 
fills yonder Horizon, in which I last saw my child, 



SOME MYSTERIES 



221 



and can almost see a bright smiling face that bids 
me be patient for a little while. 

I told Dr. what we had seen. He stood a 

moment as if incredulous, then sat down with his 
head on his hands in deep thought. " I imagined 
that I knew something about the relation of soul 
and body after a half century of reading, watching, 
thinking about it," said he. " But I don't. Body 
lowest ; mind highest ! No, I give it up." 

Occult Suggestions, 

During our boy's illness we had not diagnosed 
the trouble as due to a tumor. The majority of 
the consulting physicians, as I have said, regarded 
the case as one of limited meningitis, which pro- 
duced a suffusion of matter at the base of the brain 
sufficient to account for all the symptoms, even the 
blindness following the destruction of the optic 
nerve. In this they were mistaken, as an autopsy 
revealed a tumor, excited by a blow of which at 
the time we had not known. 

An incident occurred during his sickness that 
produced much speculation. One day, after a 
period of comparative comfort during which he had 
gone about with me, he complained of a strange 

numbness in the feet. Dr. advised a return 

to iodide of potassium three times a day, to pro- 
duce the absorption of any remaining foreign 
matter. 

In some way our conversation drifted to the 
subject of clairvoyance. In another part of the 



222 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



city was a physician who was reputed to be gifted 
with " second sight." The doctor proposed to test 
this man's ability by referring to him my boy's 
case. " If he has clairvoyant power he can tell us 
what's the matter. But I think we will find him 
a humbug, though he is said to be a highly educated 
man and a very respectable citizen. But as he 
knows neither of us it will be a good chance to test 
him. Come ! " 

On our way to the expert's residence Dr. 

and I went over the prominent symptoms of the 
lad's malady: Numbness in feet. Heart, lungs, 
stomach all right organically, but something prey- 
ing on the pneumo-gastric nerve that connects them. 
Total blindness. About two-fifths deaf, etc., etc. 

On entering the clairvoyant's room, we made no 

introduction of ourselves by name, Dr. only 

stating that we were interested in a case that was 
somewhat mysterious. 

Instantly the clairvoyant dropped into a chair, 
and began in a dreamy tone: 

" Very mysterious ! I can't see him. Ah, a lad ! 
Numb in his feet; a new symptom. — Limbs all 
right. — Intestines, stomach, heart, lungs all sound ; 
but something disturbing the pneumo-gastric 
nerve. — Oh ! and blind. Can't see a ray of light. — 
And two-fifths deaf. Limited meningitis base of 
brain. Five drops of iodide of potassium three 
times a day." 

"Tumor?" suggested Dr. . 

" No tumor ; meningitis." 



SOME MYSTERIES 



223 



We came away convinced that if in this man's 
case there was no clairvoyant power, he did possess 
a remarkable telepathic ability, and read the 
thoughts of those inquiring of him. 

Dr. determined to make further investi- 
gations. He sent his office-boy to the expert in 
occult things, giving the messenger a few symptoms 
of a purely imaginary case. The boy returned 
wildly excited. 

"Why, Doctor, the man didn't wait for me to 
speak, but told me that I had all the things you 
said your patient had." 

"What else?" 

" Nothing." 

The clairvoyant had evidently read the mes- 
senger's mind, but knew nothing of the case. 

During the following year I made the personal 
acquaintance of the clairvoyant, meeting him in 
one of our city charities, for he gave liberally of 
his gains whether well- or ill-gotten. I told him of 
the accuracy with which he had read our thoughts, 
and also of the way in which he followed them even 
when they went far astray from the real facts 
in the case. He was not at all disturbed or 
hurt by what I said; but quietly told me his his- 
tory. 

He was a Harvard graduate, and held diplomas 
from our best medical schools. Early in his prac- 
tice he had observed that when a patient entered 
his office he seemed to have an intuitive knowledge 
of the person's ailment, which subsequent examina- 



224 ALONG THE FKIEJSTDLY WAY 

tion confirmed. He acquired the habit of dropping 
external diagnosis and prescribing from his im- 
pressions. " I now believe/' he confessed, " that I 
have no clairvoyant power; I am the telepathic 
victim of any and everybody that visits me. I 
can't help thinking their thoughts about them- 
selves. Generally we are both right. That ac- 
counts for my rather extensive reputation as a 
wonder-maker. People like to be told on apparent 
authority what they already believe. On the whole 
I guess I do more good than harm; for people are 
apt to know what ails them. Besides, I give no 
medicines beyond a few simple old-housewives' 
remedies. With a little cheering up they are still, 
in spite of the advance of medical science, about the 
best." 

Telepathic Suggestions. 

This is not the only book I have written. The 
mention of telepathy reminds me of the first brain 
chick that a publisher's incubator hatched out for 
me, and set cackling among the flock of other 
creatures of the quill. 

Shortly after the book's appearance I was travel- 
ling in a railroad train on the Pacific coast. Two 
ladies, total strangers to me, seemed to be curiously 
interested in my appearance. I adjusted my neck- 
tie, examined my cap, and had the assurance of my 
wife that I was in good order. But the ladies were 
evidently not agreed between themselves as to some- 
thing about my personality. This much I sur- 



SOME MYSTERIES 



225 



mised from their debate and their glances in my 
direction. 

Several weeks later, on registering my name at 
the Stoneman House in the Yosemite, I was greeted 
by an exclamation of a sort of satisfied surprise just 
behind me. Turning I confronted the strange 
ladies. They apologized for their intrusion, and 
then gave me a problem to solve. One of them 
had read my book, and, although she had no con- 
ception of my personal appearance, was strangely 
convinced that I was the author of it. Her com- 
panion twitted her on the dangerous habit of seeing 
ghosts. The opportunity of seeing the name I 
should write on the hotel record was too much for 
the curiosity of both. 

The acquaintance thus oddly formed has con- 
tinued for many years. None of us can understand 
the matter, although I think we have all profited 
by the courtesies it suggested, although we live 
three thousand miles apart. But I cannot under- 
stand how thoughts held long in solution, as liter- 
ary invention requires, would ultimately ooze 
through the skin and leave their telltale marks on 
one's countenance. 

A week later I was walking on the street in 
Seattle pondering this very strange occurrence. I 
stopped a moment to glance over the periodicals in 
a bookstore window. The proprietor, having 
caught a glimpse of me, ran to the back of his shop 
and brought a book, saying, " Mister, I think you 
will like to read this." It was my " chicken come 



226 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



home to roost." As I glanced at the volume, I 
must have shown in my manner a perplexity which 
the man mistook for displeasure, for he instantly 
apologized. He declared that he had never done 
so rude a thing before, but that on seeing me he 
was seized with a sudden impulse to act as he had 
acted. He begged me not to be offended. I then 
told him that, having sufficiently worried my- 
self in writing the stuff, I had no inclination to read 
it. The storekeeper dropped upon a stool, and 
stammered out, — " Ton my word, Mister, I never 
offered that book or any other book to anybody 
who didn't ask for it, although I have been in this 
business for twenty years. Ain't it strange? " 

I don't know if he has ever solved the mystery; 
I have not. 

A few days after, I told the incident to a little 
group of friends whom I found on board the 
steamer going to Alaska. One of the party pro- 
fessed some knowledge of the telepathic process. 
He insisted that if a number of persons would 
think simultaneously and intensely upon a given 
subject, a hint of that subject would be conveyed 
without word or outward sign to others. We 
agreed to try the experiment. Our party consisted 
of a lawyer, a clergyman, a banker and a mining 
engineer. We summoned a jury from a number of 
our fellow-passengers who were as yet unknown to 
us. One after another of us four was to stand up, 
while the other three would think hard of who and 
what he was. I doubt if there was ever before 



SOME MYSTERIES 



227 



such team-work in the effort to drive a thought 
into others' minds. Result : — The clergyman, who 
wore a rough storm-coat, was selected by the jury 
for the mining engineer ; while the lawyer, being es- 
pecially well-groomed, was taken for the banker. 
We agreed — myself being the only dissenter — that 
telepathy was a humbug. 

I imagine that my great-grandchildren will know 
more of this subject than their forebears, and I nar- 
rate the incidents as possible way-marks on the 
road of psychic discovery. 

Literary Assimilation. 

As akin to this subject of occult suggestion I will 
give another incident. I was in the back office of a 
publisher when several reviewers and critics were 
discussing two books that had recently appeared 
and which in substance, rhetorical style and in 
some details were very similar. Plagiarism was 
hinted at. The editor of one of our foremost maga- 
zines, who had spent many years in reading and 
deciding upon the merits of manuscripts, objected 
to that inference. He stated that on many occa- 
sions he had found upon his table duplicates, and 
once or twice triplicates, of the same story or es- 
say, which had been written by persons who were 
total strangers to one another, and who from their 
remote residences in various parts of the world 
could have had no knowledge of what the alter ego 
had written. These articles, he said, were generally 
on some new and peculiar line, suggesting that the 



228 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



brains responsible for them had broken ont in 
strange spots. 

His explanation was, in his own verbiage, " Un- 
conscious Cerebral Assimilation." This explana- 
tion needs itself to be explained. Is there a sort of 
Time-Spirit over, around, within us, that prompts 
minds similarly constituted to follow the same 
paths of thought? Are we altogether free agents in 
literary composition? When we invoke our Muse 
does she sometimes dictate to us from a page which 
she has used in helping other votaries out of their 
intellectual sterility? 

I recall a tragic result of this spirit-intermed- 
dling with human affairs. An American scholar of 
my acquaintance had spent many years over the 
subject of Antichrist. He concluded that the Ro- 
man Empire most nearly filled out the description 
of that ill-savored personage contained in the car- 
toon predictions of Scripture. To confirm his con- 
clusion he mastered the politics of the Empire, the 
biographies and policies of the various emperors, 
and spent a moderate fortune over squeezes from 
monuments, coins, etc. He read to a confidential 
circle chapters of his forthcoming book. As he 
was about to send the manuscript to print there 
appeared Renan's Antichrist. The learned French- 
man had covered with detailed exactness the same 
ground, citing the same facts and drawing the 
same inferences. The world reputation of Renan 
forbade my friend contesting the rewards of au- 
thorship. 



SOME MYSTEKIES 



229 



It is said that the waves of ether which convey 
the Marconigrams radiate in all directions from a 
common centre, and could be interpreted by per- 
sons far away on any side, if only they had the key, 
or the instrument to measure the dimension of the 
wave. Does a new thought or series of thoughts, 
agitating our minds, similarly, without word- wires, 
agitate the thought-ether everywhere, so that any 
other mind that happens to be attuned to the intel- 
lectual wave will be prompted by it? Since Jules 
Verne is gone where he knows all about this, but 
cannot tell us, possibly Mr. H. G. Wells, who 
doesn't know but can tell, may be induced to dis- 
cuss the subject. 

The phenomenon is often noticed in other than 
literary matters. The Braille system of "point- 
writing " for the blind appeared in France simulta- 
neously with that of my friend, the late Dr. McClel- 
land, in America ; yet I am confident there had been 
no previous hint of it from either inventor. 
Anaesthesia has at least three reputed fathers. This 
is harder to explain than that seven cities strove 
for the renown of having been the birthplace of 
Homer; or that the Codes of Moses and Hammu- 
rabi were coincident; or that the Jewish expecta- 
tion of the Messiah was matched by something 
similar among pagan people, as when, a half cen- 
tury before the Advent, the Roman Sibyl heralded 
a universal monarch who would bring peace and 
happiness to all mankind. When Virgil congratu- 
lated his friend Pollio on the birth of a son, saying 



230 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



that he might be the coming deliverer of men from 
all their ills, was he a plagiarist of the Jewish 
prophets? 

Whence come these common thoughts? Some- 
where Max Miiller says, — " Thoughts flow through 
my innermost being like meteors which shoot from 
heaven toward earth, but are extinguished before 
they reach their goal." Are there more observers 
than one who detect these celestial monitors before 
they disappear, and try to tell the dark world what 
they mean? 

But I had better stop this sort of speculation, lest 
I inherit the woe of those who are guilty of ogling 
the unrevealed, whom the poet represents in Pur- 
gatory with heads reversed on their shoulders and 
tears streaming down their backs. 



IX 



REST CURES 

Change of Thought, 

IN common with most men whose ambition puts 
a strain upon their abilities I once found my- 
self verging toward a breakdown. While the 
passion for success was not diminished, indeed 
rather increased by some tastings of the spicery in 
the cup, I was becoming more easily wearied with 
intellectual application; the draught smacked too 
much of the dregs. Subjects which once had been 
pursued with zest until midnight became stale be- 
fore midday. Mental energy was getting not only 
torpid, but a little rheumatic, so that exertion 
became painful. 

To this was soon added nervous irritability. I re- 
sorted to the weed, only to find, what I believe to be 
the general experience, that, while it solaced for the 
time being as I watched the encircling clouds, it 
was invariably followed by greater lassitude and in- 
creased petulance. 

My physician put me through the usual course 
of tonics, baths, diets, household gymnastics, and 
days off ; and with the usual result that I was none 

231 



232 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



the less stupid at my study-table. He then pre- 
scribed total rest for a while. 

While seeking for some convenient "belt of 
calm " where I could drop anchor, I was more 
wisely counselled by a friend, the editor of one of 
our leading periodicals : — " You can't rest in idle- 
ness. You are not built that way. If you try to 
anchor, you will find a ground-swell in your nature 
that will trouble you far more than the high waves 
of intensest pursuit. Your mind will grind on and 
on just the same, and if you give it no grist of inter- 
esting topics it will simply grind on itself and be- 
come permanently injured. You need not cessa- 
tion from work, but change of work. I've been 
down in your dump myself, and know how to crawl 
out better than your doctors do. If you attempt to 
rest by stagnating you will only stir up your own 
sediment. Come to the office. Give me a semi- 
weekly column — on any topic you please, except 
those which have heretofore occupied you. Write 
up foreign affairs, thunder away on national mat- 
ters, or ' shoot folly as it flies ' in fashionable and 
conventional life. Your brain needs rotation in 
crops, new seeding." 

For a time I took his advice. I succeeded. I won 
for his paper some abuse for its editorial articles — 
"a true sign of journalistic ability" was my 
friend's encouraging comment — and at the same 
time I felt myself being relieved from my malady. 
This surprised me ; for, instead of lessening, I had 
added to the bulk of my daily task, yet found in it 



BEST CURES 



233 



a stimulus which reacted favorably upon my ordi- 
nary professional work. I had not rested, but I had 
recreated. 

Since then I have always had a side " iron in the 
fire," something that pleased my fancy, upon which 
I could work off the ennui that comes from undi- 
vided application. My library table had two sides. 
On this side I toiled at my professional work. 
Across yonder I played, though there my pen 
scratched at breakneck rate. My friend was right ; 
the mind cannot rest. It is the only mechanism 
that has demonstrated perpetual motion. The ju- 
dicious wear of it — that is, without the tear — makes 
it run more smoothly. It is more alert and active 
than the eagle; for the eagle at times stays upon 
the nest, while the mind rests best upon the wing ; — 
only give it new prey to search and different alti- 
tudes through which to soar. 

In these experiments I made a discovery. I found 
in myself tastes and adaptabilities that I had not 
before suspected. If I had known them in earlier 
days the knowledge might have given an entirely 
different direction to my life. But at forty it is too 
late to transplant oneself into another profession. 
The old roots will not form about them the new 
mould closely enough to draw full nurture. 

But yet at that age, or even later, — like old trees 
— we can take on new grafts. And sometimes the 
graft will bear better fruit than that produced di- 
rectly by the old tree. I have a notion that it has 
been so with me, as I look at the two piles of stuff, 



234 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



the one professional, the other extra-professional, 
that I have garnered dnring these later years. 

Such experience is, I think, not uncommon. We 
cull that which is sweetest and best oftentimes 
along the side paths, rather than on the beaten 
highway where we drag our heavy burdens. Robert 
C. Ogden was a business man ; his career was that 
of buyer and seller and an employer of men ; but we 
erect his monument at Hampton and in our hearts 
because he found his recreation in philanthropy. 
Stedman was a banker ; but who cares for that when 
reading his poems? Morse was a portrait painter; 
we never think of it when we telegraph with his 
code. The dynamo is only a device for gathering up 
the side spray from the wire while the main current 
goes on; but perhaps electro-magnetic induction is 
the most useful discovery in the whole field of mod- 
ern science. We light our houses, drive our trolleys 
and machine shops by this side-play of the titanic 
force. Is brain-work exceptional in this respect? 

Literary Diversion. 

As already intimated, I have been guilty of mak- 
ing some books, and thus adding to the burden upon 
the popular mind. In extenuation of my offense I 
avow that I never wilfully attempted to enter the 
literary fraternity, conceiving that one profession 
is enough for any man of ordinary abilities. 

Now and then, however, there has been swung 
open to me a favorable opportunity to investigate a 
subject that ought to be in the public interest, and 



BEST CUKES 



235 



I have felt it to be a duty to lend my pen to the 
printer. Or some period of history has engrossed 
me, and for my own better information I have set in 
order its events and the impressions they have 
made. 

A great delight — something left over from child- 
ish habit — has been to imagine myself living in 
some other land and age, and to attempt to paint 
the scenes with which I would there and then have 
been familiar. This has led me to read more care- 
fully, to dig out from libraries the older books — 
which are generally the fuller books, of which the 
more recent are apt to be partial compilations or, 
at best, condensations — to familiarize myself with 
folk-lore, and now and then to journey far away in 
order to confirm or correct present impressions. 

Library pals and publishers have persuaded me 
that the public would be interested in what I had 
found, and so I have let my craft drift in among the 
motley fleet of so-called " current literature." But 
the chief incentive has been my own pleasure and 
recreation. 

A semi-fiendish pastime has been to occasionally 
play the literary critic of others. There is noth- 
ing more fascinating than to read a really thought- 
ful book with the care necessary to its cor- 
rect assaying. Such study stimulates and informs 
us as, perhaps, no other intellectual work does. 

Besides, reviewing gives one a sense of moral up- 
lift as one realizes that he is thus introducing 
others to helpful reading or warning them against 



236 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



that which will only result in a waste of time, — this 
latter consideration being important in our day 
when there is an overflight of goose-quills. 

But unfortunately the profession of critics is 
crowded with those who are unfitted, both as re- 
spects ability and conscience, for their task. Half- 
educated men and women, who could not have writ- 
ten a page of what they oracularly " review," label 
our new books with commendation or condemna- 
tion, and the dear public takes the label instead of a 
sample. We buy our literary stuff by the package, 
as we do our kitchen foods, and, alas ! there are no 
Pure Food Laws to guard our mental pabulum. 
The " critic " who can write a fetching advertise- 
ment is the most valuable man about some publish- 
ing offices. In a case known to me a successful 
drummer was taken from the road, and installed in 
the place of prospectus writer, taking the position 
long occupied by one who had himself written mas- 
terpieces. 

So it oftentimes comes to pass that books of the 
greatest importance are left in manuscript obscur- 
ity because they were not sufficiently nimble-footed 
to get to the head of the procession of prospective 
big sellers. Books that are sparkling with gems of 
thought remain buried under the spangles of their 
own pall. Manuscripts are rejected by a dozen pub- 
lishers only to be rescued by a lucky thirteenth who 
happens to be his own " reader." Trash is mar- 
keted by the ton, because the office critic happened 
at the time to be too full of lunch, or had such large 



EEST CUKES 



237 



holes in his brain that he was unappreciative of the 
finer stuff that sifted through. 

An incident among my own first attempts to fly 
in public will illustrate this. I sent a sketch to one 
of our best periodicals. It was returned with the 
usual thanks and regrets. It appeared later in an- 
other magazine. Its appearance there brought a 
letter from the first publisher stating that he had 
read with interest the article in the rival periodical, 
and promising goodly remuneration for one of like 
character. 

Keviewers of published books are often as uncer- 
tain in their judgments. Having worked on such 
teams I may be allowed to criticize some off-side 
plays of my comrades. 

I have had occasion to look over some fifty " criti- 
cisms " of a well-known book. More than a third of 
these were made up of identical sentences repeated 
from the publisher's advance trade advertise- 
ment. 

One of our prominent journals was accustomed 
to send all books for review to a certain versatile 
schoolmarm, whose remuneration for her " opin- 
ions " was the privilege of adding the precious me- 
lange to her own library or selling it to second-hand 
dealers at half the publishers' price. These books 
were upon all sorts of subjects — the Pragmatic Phi- 
losophy, the Atomic Theory of the Constitution of 
the Universe, Psychic Eesearch, travels in Arabia, 
dialect stories of Indiana and Pitlochie, adventures 
among cowboys, life in the slums or amid fashion- 



238 



ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



able society rot. The lady in question was suffi- 
ciently eclectic or versatile — doubtless with the 
help of her favorite scholars — to sound all the 
depths and shallows of the world's current think- 
ing! 

An amusing instance of maladroit reviewing 
came under my eye. I had published a book en- 
titled Incentives for Life, made up of moral and re- 
ligious advice to young people. A journal of wide 
circulation gave the book praise. 

" There," said the author, " is a critic who knows 
what he is talking about." 

But at the end of a half column of blarney he was 
disillusioned. The reviewer had evidently mistaken 
the title, and thought the book was written against 
the growing habit of suicide from lack of " Incen- 
tive " to keep on living. The closing sentence of 
this precious critique read, — " The book presents 
in succinct form, logical connection and elegant 
diction, all the considerations which might be sup- 
posed to induce men to live when they would rather 
die ; but it is a work of kindly supererogation ; for 
when momentarily overcome by unusual burdens, 
or by the pressure of long-continued weight upon 
the spirit, men hasten to shuffle off the mortal coil," 
etc. And this about a book written for the Sunday- 
school and not for the Suicide Club ! 

One well known to me published a work relating 
to a period of medieval history. To make it more 
valuable to scholars the publisher suggested a thor- 
ough bibliographical appendix. The most noted ex- 



EEST CUEES 



239 



pert attached to the Astor Library in New York 
was engaged to prepare the work. Page after page 
of condensed type gave the list of possible books of 
reference. All the sources of information were 
thoroughly explored. Every bound volume, every 
pamphlet or manuscript that was catalogued in the 
world's libraries was cited. But a reviewer in a 
critical journal, after praising the style of the new 
book, coolly remarked that from the " meagre bibli- 
ography appended " he doubted the author's erudi- 
tion. It was afterward discovered that the list 
given lacked nothing except a pamphlet that the 
critic himself had once written on the subject. Yet 
the criticism undoubtedly affected the sale of the 
work. 

I once was led to test by experience the life in the 
cheapest night-lodging houses. The motley crowd 
of old bums and unfortunates most cruelly im- 
pressed me, a mere tenderfoot in such semi-civilized 
environment. While the sensations, both moral 
and physical, were still painfully Upon me, I wrote 
a sketch of what I had discovered. A weekly com- 
plimented my gift for romancing, but informed its 
readers that, of course, there was really no such low 
grade life in our country. 

" Confession is good for the soul," so I will tell 
the following of my own sad lapse from the virtue 
of a true critic. 

I had agreed to review a work by a well-known 
author. His subject was rather mystical, and his 
method of dealing with it was in spots too profound 



240 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



for my fathoming line. I sought out the sage him- 
self. 

" Tell me plainly, Doctor, just what you were 
driving at when you wrote the book." 

He explained his theme, and threaded his argu- 
ments in glittering array. Yet I could not take in 
his full design. I said, " Please write me a letter, 
for I have reason to be interested in your work." 

" Gladly," he replied, " for the thick-headed 
reviewers haven't brains enough to grasp my 
ideas." 

The letter was a little clearer than our conversa- 
tion, but still not sufticiently illuminating to allow 
me to risk putting the subject on the public screen 
through my somewhat opaque mental lens. I there- 
fore wrote a brief introduction in which I por- 
trayed the deserved renown of the writer of the 
book; also some closing words of general commen- 
dation, for the work had many incidental beauties, 
brilliant epigrams and rare philosophical deduc- 
tions. I filled the bulk of the critique with my 
friend's own elucidation of the topic, which I took 
word for word from his letter. 

A few weeks later at our club the learned writer 
said to me, " There is only one man who seems to 
understand my book. He is the fellow who re- 
viewed me in . No man has the right to crit- 
icize another's work unless he possesses a sort of 
telepathic power of putting himself at the centre of 
an author's soul and looking out. That fellow has 
done it. Read his review. It will clear up some 



REST CUEES 



241 



things which you apparently didn't understand the 
other day." 

Whether his remark was a wise rule for critics in 
general, or was suggested by a suspicion of my 
theft, I am uncertain. But I am certain that I did 
not lose a friend by my plagiarism. 

Rapid Motion. 

Mental relief produced by change of studies and 
habitual lines of professional interest proved so 
beneficial to me that I was induced to try a larger 
dose of it. The opportunity for a few months' 
cruise and tramp in the Middle Orient offered the 
sugar-coating for the rather bitter pill of absence 
from those whom I loved; so I sailed away. The 
log of that voyage will show that it was not defi- 
cient in furnishing at least change of thought. 

Allowing, as I thought, an abundance of time for 
crossing the Atlantic, I counted upon at least four 
days in London before leaving for Naples, where I 
would take steamer for Alexandria. I therefore 
left all preparation for the tour, outfit and the like, 
to be made in England. Unfortunately a storm pro- 
tracted my ocean trip two days; and, as if some 
vengeful Venus were bent on thwarting a diminu- 
tive Ulysses, the Mediterranean steamer put her 
sailing date two days ahead. This used up my ex- 
pected four days in London. 

At Charing Cross Station I was informed that 
it was useless to attempt reaching Naples in time 
for the sailing of the vessel. The various travelling 



242 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



agencies gave me the same unconsoling advice. 
Luckily I ran across an exceptionally canny man- 
ager of one of these latter helpful concerns. After 
walking up and down his office for five minutes he 
turned suddenly : 

" If you can leave London in half an hour 111 put 
you on your steamer." 

" Impossible ! " I replied. " I have all my ar- 
rangements to make." 

" Nonsense ! The fewer arrangements you make 
for that trip the fewer disappointments you will 
have." 

" But I must have my passport vised at the Turk- 
ish Consulate, money arranged for at my bankers, 
clothing bought. Besides, I am hungry and tired, 
and I have promised myself a good feed and a rest 
with some English friends. I'll take the next boat 
for Egypt." 

" This is the last good boat for the season. The 
next would bring you too late to see what you ought 
to see in the land. It is already almost too hot to 
go. Now I'll have your passport vised, and sent to 
reach you at the first place where you will need it. 
As for money, — let me see your letter of credit ! All 
right! I'll advance all the money you will need. 
It's up to you. Thirty minutes to do London and 
the British Empire ! What do you say? " 

I took a ten-seconds' twirl on my heel, and said, 
" I'll do it." Ten minutes sufficed for the purchase 
of a shop suit of travelling clothes, whose chief 
merit was that they already looked dirty, and 



BEST CUEES 



243 



would probably not be further soiled by desert dust. 
Ten minutes more were spent in an Epicurean de- 
bauch at a lunch counter. In eight minutes more I 
was at Charing Cross Station. My friend and I 
arrived almost simultaneously. 

" Get in here ! " he said, pushing me into a first- 
class compartment. " Here is your money ; Bank 
of England bills ; some French gold, and a handful 
of silver. Here is a package of letters introducing 
you to various hotel nabobs who will want to serve 
me even if they don't know you. And here is your 
ticket to Marseilles." 

" To Marseilles ! I'm not going to Marseilles. 
I'm going to Naples." 

u That's right," he replied, gently pressing me 
back into my seat. " But you are going to Naples 
by way of Marseilles. I have figured it out that 
your ship starts from Marseilles and stops at 
Naples ; and that if you are not delayed in getting 
to Paris, and if the train loses no time going south 
from there, and if you yourself don't get left at 
some lunch counter on the way, you will get to Mar- 
seilles about sunrise day after to-morrow, and your 
boat doesn't sail until seven o'clock. Bon voyage! " 
And he was gone. 

Surely with a series of almost wrecking storms 
on the Atlantic, and this hustling of a London trav- 
elling agent, I was getting " a change of thought." 
In fact I could hardly keep up with my own medita- 
tions. I recalled the story of the tortoise which 
was seized by an eagle, and dropped upon the bald 



244 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



head of a philosopher. The experience of the crea- 
ture as he was gyrating downward must have been 
approximately like my own as I was being whirled 
away on my unknown journey. 

I reached my steamer at Marseilles just as she 
was bloAving her last whistle, pulled out to her in 
the last rowboat, and secured her last vacant berth. 
I spent the days of the crossing in making pockets 
in my new travelling suit ( for I found that it was 
without these essentials of male attire), in protest- 
ing with the captain against his custom of allowing 
ship-rats to eat off the kid tops of the passengers' 
gaiters, and in resenting the claims of sundry Eng- 
lish people, who, because Britannia ruled the sea, 
imagined that they could appropriate all the com- 
forts of a French steamer. 

In Cairo I put up at Shepard's hotel, which had 
recently opened. But having, through recent 
events, acquired an active turn of mind, I found 
myself bored with the monotonous kaleidoscope of 
European fashions inside the great hostelry, and 
outside with the continuous parade of green tur- 
bans, in which the newfangled saints of the town 
impressed strangers with the fact that they were 
returning from Mecca. I wanted a change, so 
penetrated the interior of the town, and put up 
at — or rather, put up with — a Portuguese-Arab 
tavern. 

Here I was in the midst of antipodal novelties, 
with the real Egypt thick upon me. Except for the 
broken English of the chief butler of the establish- 



BEST CUEES 



245 



ment I might have imagined myself transported to 
the age of the Pharaohs. At night the illusion was 
sharply realistic, for several of the plagues of that 
period were rehearsed in my sleeping apartment. 
My bed was in the middle of the room, its posts rest- 
ing in jars of water. When the candles were 
brought the walls seemed to be covered with tapes- 
tries of watered silk, gently moving in the evening 
zephyr. A closer inspection revealed myriads of 
white fleas that had been disturbed by the light and 
were changing positions, possibly being mobilized 
for a night attack. In the interest of anthropolog- 
ical and zoological science I endured my lodgings 
for several days, and then scratched out. 

Now that my brain was in rapid motion, going 
after "new thoughts," I found the whole land of 
Egypt was rather monotonous. Primitive peoples 
affect an observer very much as do the animals in 
a monkey cage ; the pranks of the pre-homos enter- 
tain for a while, but tire us with their uninventive 
sameness. Naked fellahs drawing water from the 
Nile, short-skirted boys driving donkeys with sticks, 
camels grunting their dissatisfaction with labor 
laws, fakirs and snake-charmers practicing the 
tricks that Aaron worsted them in three thousand 
years ago, villages of wattles and sun-dried mud, — 
these set off ruined temples and pyramids as crawl- 
ing moths adorn an ancient burial pall. So I 
sought easement for my new passion for novelty by 
going to Palestine. 



246 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



Entertaining Royalty. 

But monotony folloAved me. Where the railroad 
joined the Suez Canal our company of tourists were 
met by a handsome white-mustached gentleman 
who introduced himself as Count de Lesseps, the 
promoter of the big endeavor. 

Said he, " Gentlemen, the Crown Prince Eudolph 
of Austria is about to visit the Holy Land. In a 
few moments he will arrive at the dock. I suggest 
that all the Europeans in the place— ^and you and I 
are about all there are of such worthies — give him 
a welcome to this ancient land." 

As it would be a novel sensation for a democratic 
American to be introduced to even a small lump of 
royalty, I joined the Committee of Reception. A 
half-dozen of us, representing as many different 
nationalities, arrayed in white helmets, tarbooshes, 
caps or slouched hats and dusters, enacted the court 
scene, received His Royal Highnesses smiles, and 
the handshake of his attendants. 

The next day the canal brought me to Port Said. 
The major domo of our hotel announced, — " Gentle- 
men, the Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria is about 
to visit the Holy Land. In a few moments he will 
arrive at the dock. You are asked to take part in 
welcoming him." I basked again in the smile of the 
House of Hapsburg, but noticed that said smile had 
a sort of interrogation-mark twist to it as he sur- 
veyed our faces. 

We booked for Joppa. A cholera scare had led 
the authorities of Port Said to refuse landing to the 



EEST CUEES 



247 



passengers just arrived from the northern coast. 
They must return by the same ship that brought 
them. Hence I could not secure a berth, but slept 
on deck under the eavesdroppings of a rather foggy 
heaven, wedged in between two families of un- 
washed Arabs, and sharing with them — I will not 
say what. My dreams were monotonous. 

At Joppa the port-master received us with the 
enthusiastic news, — " Gentlemen, the Crown Prince 
Rudolph of Austria is about to visit the Holy Land. 
In a few moments he will be at the dock. Be so 
kind as to assist in welcoming him." 

I can appreciate the apparent nonchalance of dis- 
tinguished actors in repeating for the tenth time 
their recall before the footlights. Even this triple 
favor of the royal smile had lost its zest, notwith- 
standing that said smile had now elongated itself 
into a laugh as the Prince recognized the old gang 
of his friends and admirers. I have a notion that 
he prized our welcome as the actress who recognizes 
the same bouquet in its successive appearances en- 
joys the scent of the flowers. Several of the 
Prince's suite closely invested our company so that 
we could not have drawn dirk or pistol to assassi- 
nate His Brevet Majesty if we had been so dis- 
posed. 

Joppa was in excitement. Almost every horse 
that was neither blind nor spavined had been en- 
gaged for the royal cortege. Tourists were allowed 
to select from the residue. My own beast could 
only limp on four legs and canter or gallop on three, 



248 ALONG THE FEIENDLY WAY 



which promised some new sensation to relieve any 
otherwise monotonous happenings of the journey. 

In courtesy we allowed the more splendid 
princely retinue of Austria to precede us on the 
road up to Jerusalem. But royal dust is as dis- 
agreeable as any other kind of dust to a democrat ; 
so, at a turn in the highway, in spite of the protesta- 
tions of our dragoman, we took a short cut across 
a field full of boulders, and made our triumphal 
entry into the city some hours ahead of the national 
guest. We were hardly quartered at our hotel when 
an official, in bagged trousers pinned fast at the 
waist by sundry stilettos and pistols, announced, — 
" Gentlemen, the Crown Prince Eudolph of Austria 
is about to enter the Holy City. Be kind enough to 
assist at his reception at the Joppa Gate." I did 
so; but I could not avoid the feeling that, by my 
ubiquitous nearness to His Majesty, I had come to 
be looked upon as a possible Eavaillac or Wilkes 
Booth. 

A few days later I was loitering about the Tem- 
ple Plaza on Mount Zion when my meditations were 
interrupted by another bedizzened official, who in- 
formed me, in a tone so gentle that it suggested 
bakhshish, that the Crown Prince Eudolph of Aus- 
tria was about to visit the sacred precinct. Would 
I like to join in welcoming him at the Mosque of 
Omar? 

I have taken a prejudice against the whole family 
of Francis Joseph, which no reading of its history, 
not even the tragic taking off of Eudolph, has less- 



EEST CURES 



249 



ened ; and am prepared to agree with most writers 
that Austria was for a thousand years an interna- 
tional nuisance, which has at length been cleaned 
off the face of the earth, together with all its race 
of princelings. 

Camping and Tramping. 

There is no place like Palestine for great, soul- 
affecting impressions, that is, if one will take time 
for them to soak in. I absorbed a fortnight's worth 
of them in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and then 
started north for quicker sensations. The first night 
out we had a congenial brain-shaking. Our camp 
was attacked by robbers who looted several tents. 
We had in our company a high church clergyman, 
who was as punctilious in the matter of clerical 
dress as he was confident of his own ordination of 
heaven. His duty to " the cloth " was not affected 
by the scorching heat of the sun, the dry dust that 
turned his once black suit into the likeness of a 
white shroud, the saddle wear on his trousers rump 
and calf, nor the scanty toilet of the camp. At 
daybreak we were aroused by this gentleman's 
agonizing outcry, "We are robbed! We are 
robbed!" 

Rushing from our various tents we saw a sight 
that sent the shivers through several female hearts. 
There stood the valiant man, panoplied in all his 
proprieties — almost. Notwithstanding his fright 
he had adjusted his shovel hat, buttoned his high- 
cut vest, gotten his round collar properly back side 



250 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



front, hung the golden cross at the right spot over 
his stomach; — he had forgotten nothing — except 
his trousers ! These doubtless the diminutive size of 
his mirror had led him to overlook. I have often 
thought of him as the most faithful of the Scribes. 
]So " mint, anise or cummin " would he have omit- 
ted, although, perhaps through inadvertence, he 
might have forgotten some "weightier matter of 
the law." 

Our dragoman was a daring fellow. Said he, " If 
I permit this robbery by the Arabs to go unpun- 
ished I can never come again this way with safety." 
As there was no law in those parts we were accom- 
panied by forty stalwart Lebanon men. With these 
the dragoman made a raid on the neighboring Arab 
village, brought back a captive, and beat him 
soundly in sight of his own people. 

" How do you know that this man is guilty? 
Why not try him first? " we asked. 

Farah replied, " Then I could never punish him 
at all, for an Arab can lie himself out of any of- 
fense. 99 

He tied the presumed robber's hands behind his 
back, haltered him to a mule, and marched him all 
day under the eye of a Lebanon man to Shechem. 
Eesult, — the culprit escaped, carrying with him the 
contents of his guard's pocket. I understand why 
the gamin of Xew York, whom the redoubtable 
Thackeray confessed that he could never outwit, 
are called " street Arabs." 

Our dragoman warned us almost daily not to 



BEST CUKES 



251 



wander away from the main column, lest we should 
be cut off and held for ransom. Neglect of this 
advice gave us another brain-shake. 

A Druse village hangs on one of the steep slopes 
of Hermon, like a wasps' nest on a house-side. So 
close are the houses that the roof of one dwelling 
serves as the door-yard of the one above it. Our 
party entered the village from the valley below. As 
soon as we were seen the whole population, men, 
women, naked children and dogs, came leaping 
down from roof to roof, as if to repel an attack. I 
wished that our dragoman had not told us that the 
Druses were the most ferocious tribesmen on Leba- 
non; how a few years before they had murdered 
eleven thousand Christians in their bloody zeal- 
otry ; how Sitt Naaify, a she-devil and their leader, 
had urged them to leave alive no Christian between 
seven and seventy years old. Our fears were, how- 
ever, somewhat allayed by the news that Sitt had 
" gone to her own place," and when last heard from 
was on the river Styx, where she had taken in a 
heavy laundering job of washing the blood-marks 
from her own soul. 

The Druses, finding that we came peaceably, were 
quite friendly. This they showed by their personal 
interest in everything we had, hats, coats, shoe- 
strings, and, unless you happened to have your own 
hands in them, the contents of your pockets. 

Three of our party who were Americans were in- 
duced by our racial curiosity to visit the Sheikh 
who had come to see the meaning of the tumult. 



252 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



This worthy had a face as broad as a lion's, and 
similarly framed with light tawny hair. It would 
have been attractive but for his eyes, one of which 
turned upward, the other downward, leaving in our 
minds a doubt as to his character which was not 
settled by the denouement of the story. lie invited 
us into his house, stepped out of his sandals, curled 
up barefoot on his rug, and bade us to make our- 
selves equally at home. This we proceeded to do, 
when our host suddenly exploded in what seemed to 
us a fit of spontaneous combustion. He raged at 
one of our number who had trodden his rug without 
removing his boots. The hubbub brought a crowd 
of Druses about and into the house. We appointed 
one of us to do the honors for the others ; to take off 
his boots, and curl up beside our host. All was 
amiability for a moment or two, until we discovered 
that a most diabolical-looking Druse had appropri- 
ated the boots, and paraded before the crowd ad- 
miring his dirty legs in their splendid ending. In 
vain we demanded the restoration of the boot-y. 
" Bakhshish ! Bakhshish ! " was the cry of the 
crowd. Hands were stretched out, fumbling our 
watch-chains, and feeling the bulges made by our 
pocketbooks. Physical resistance was out of the 
question. " Divide and conquer " is an old mili- 
tary maxim. We tried it. Touching with my finger 
the hairy breast-bone of the Sheikh, I said, with 
voice as heroic as the tremor of my muscles permit- 
ted : — " Good Sheikh bakhshish ! All bakhshish to 
good Sheikh ! " Then with a look of as much with- 



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253 



ering scorn as I thought safe to display, I turned 
to the crowd, — " No bakhshish ! " 

This appeal to the Sheikh's cupidity worked like 
the charmed words we read about in an Arabian 
tale. He seized the thief, literally shook him out of 
his boots, and with loud outcry drove the crowd 
away. 

What sum should we pay Old Mammon for our 
ransom? We prepared to divide our fortunes. I 
took from my pocket a handful of silver coins, in- 
tending to delve deeper for yellow metal. But the 
Sheikh's lower eye was fascinated with the white 
gleam. I gave him an English half-crown. He was 
as delighted as a child. He kissed my hand, and led 
us three Americans back to our company. 

" It turned out all right," commented our drago- 
man, " but if that old humbug hadn't known that I 
was Farah of Zahleh, in charge of this expedition, 
he would have scraped you down to the skin. Don't 
be so foolish again." 

At Damascus I had another excitement of 
"goose-flesh." A Mohammedan gentleman of 
widest burnoose, a Past Master in the Masonic Fra- 
ternity, showed us the utmost courtesy. He was 
a man of unusual beauty of countenance, almost 
femininely amiable, and with a voice that would 
not have frightened a nightingale from singing in 
the bush under his window. His home was pala- 
tial, and furnished with even Oriental extrava- 
gance, though with perfect taste. His manner and 
environment betokened the gentlest of souls. 



254 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



But a large hall in the dwelling was devoted to 
the storage of arms. Pendant from the walls, 
stacked in corners, loaded into boxes to be carried 
away in sudden emergency, were all sorts of weap- 
ons, bludgeons, cutlasses, rapiers, bayonets, pistols, 
rifles. When I asked him through our interpreter 
the occasion of such an accumulation, he replied as 
amiably as a girl showing her jewels, — " To kill 
Christians." 

This man had been the leader of the great mas- 
sacre in 1860, the witness of which is the crowded 
cemetery just outside the city gate. 

I thought, " This murderer and I belong to the 
same humanity. There is in us both the hidden dy- 
namite of cruelty that the jostling of sudden hate, 
or even the scratching of bigotry, may explode. Yes, 
my ancestors slew his ancestors on these same fields 
during that racial insanity called the Crusades. 
And back of that our forebears doubtless brained 
one another in the Stone Age in their fights for 
their caves and harems." 

An affair at Baalbek made us realize that the 
strife of Christian and Paynim was not yet over. 
We were accustomed to send our tent-makers and 
cooks an hour ahead of us, so that at nightfall we 
would not be belated with dinner and rest. On our 
arrival that day at the famous ruin there was no 
sign of our helpers. The sunset reddened the big 
stones, as when they once dripped with the bloody 
sacrifice to Baal. Later the stars nested like white 
doves in the tall columns of the Temple of Jupiter. 



EEST CUKES 



255 



But Yusef and Yakub, our chief butler and chief 
baker and their attendant satellites, did not appear. 
It was late in the night before they arrived. Some 
were limping, some were bruised on head, back or 
shins. One or two showed dangerous wounds. 
They had evidently been through a fearful battle. 

Their story was that as they were going quietly 
through a Moslem village they were set upon by the 
entire population. They defended themselves as 
they were able, but failed to rescue several pieces of 
baggage which the assailants had captured during 
the melee. 

We made complaint at the local court of the 
pashalic. The accused villagers were summoned to 
answer. A number of their chief men came. On 
our side a dozen honest-looking fellows testified, 
and corroborated their testimony with the evidence 
of cuts and bruises. They estimated their assail- 
ants at a hundred. On the other side of the case 
was only one witness. He was an old and very de- 
crepit man who hobbled on a crutch. This witness 
declared, by his hope of Paradise, that, the day hav- 
ing been a local saint's day, all the men of the vil- 
lage except himself had been away at the tomb ; that 
these Lebanon marauders made an attack upon the 
women and children ; that he alone, with that same 
crutch, had defended the place, cracking this man's 
skull, gashing that man's back, and driving the 
whole unbelieving horde pell-mell out of the village. 
A roar of laughter from both sides greeted this bom- 
bastic but evident lie. Then the judge deliberated. 



256 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



From his alternate grins and frowns it was clear 
that his judgment was somewhat puzzled. At 
length came the momentous decision, — " Since on 
the one side are various stories from we know not 
whom, while on the other side is the word of a good 
and worthy Mohammedan well known to us, we 
must decide that the strangers have no grievance." 

Then up rose our valiant dragoman. "I am 
Farah Maloup of Zahleh. I see by your blanching 
that you know that name. Unless within twenty- 
four hours our baggage is restored, and an apology 
sent, I swear by the biggest stone in these ruined 
walls, that I will return with five hundred of the 
young men of Zahleh. We will burn your town." 

The judge and the chief men among the villagers 
were in a quandary. Zahleh could exterminate 
them. They consulted. They apologized. The next 
day our baggage was safely in camp. 

My " change of thought " required several more 
doses. At Beirut I was taken sick. A good mis- 
sionary and his wife sought me out, took me from 
the hotel, and nursed me back to travelling health. 
While convalescing I visited a large female Bible 
class. There were over a hundred young women. 
To get the real beauty of blushes occasioned by the 
kissing of the Syrian sun, one must see many to- 
gether, as we get the color of the waves of the sea 
from their multitudinous movement. Black eyes 
and black hair, set off by snow-white veils jauntily 
adjusted at one side, in mute protest against the 
enslavement of the harem, made me wish that the 



EEST CUKES 



257 



women in our home churches could witness such a 
scene, and lay aside their kaleidoscopic head-gear 
during worship. It would add very materially to 
the "beauty of holiness." 

A very touching thing occurred. While the 
leader of the class was speaking to these people, I 
noticed that they turned and looked at me as if with 
peculiar interest. After the service I asked the mis- 
sionary the occasion of this, since I regarded my- 
self as a total stranger to them. 

" Oh," said he, " I was telling them that the gen- 
tleman on the platform is the father of Davie." 

" But what do they know of my Davie? " 

" Why, I translated the story of your blind child 
to them, as I read it in an American journal. They 
all know Davie." 

The sea is wide. The gulf between races is often 
wider. But personal sympathy will bridge them 
both. 

On my return home I told this story to my neigh- 
bors. In their kindly remembrance of the little 
fellow they insisted upon raising a fund with which 
they endowed a perpetual scholarship in Beirut 
Syrian College, as a memorial of the lad's brief but 
heroic life. 

Some Human Curios. 

There frequently camped near us in our journey 
through Palestine an English gentleman who was 
travelling with his niece. We exchanged visits, 
jogged along together at times, and thus became 



258 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



well acquainted. At Beirut this gentleman came 
to us in great alarm. His niece had announced her 
engagement in marriage to the dragoman of their 
party. This dragoman was a handsome fellow ; an 
American, by the way. His father had been a re- 
ligious crank, and had gone to the Holy Land an- 
ticipating the Second Coming of Christ on Mount 
Zion. If the young man had forgotten his religion, 
he had not forgotten his Shakespeare, and was pre- 
pared to play the Othello to any heiress whom he 
could impress with his romances of adventure, or 
lure with his marvellous prospects of building a 
" Castle in Syria." 

The niece was obdurate in her purpose to remain 
in the land, and devote a large fortune, which she 
held in her own name, to the establishment of an 
estate, and the spreading of her husband's fame. 
We advised the gentleman to take his niece back to 
England. 

" But the British Consul declares that would be 
an illegal act, as the woman is of legal age." 

Farah, our dragoman, cut the Gordian Knot. — 
" Take her by force. If you don't, we other drago- 
mans — and there are a score of us now in town — 
will murder the bridegroom, so that we will have a 
funeral prelude to the wedding." 

We Americans agreed to countenance the abduc- 
tion by our presence, and the plan was adopted. 
When the lady heard of it she attempted suicide by 
throwing herself from the hotel window. But big 
Farah rescued her. A procession was formed, 



REST CURES 



259 



Farah taking one of her arms, her uncle the other, 
our party closely investing so that the crowd was 
not attracted by the lady's resistance, and twenty 
other dragomans making an outer defense against 
any attack by the infuriated Othello. Thus the 
lady was deposited on the Austrian Lloyd steamer. 

Some weeks later, while wandering about the 
Acropolis at Athens, I came upon the English 
party. As the lady knew of my complicity in the 
affair at Beirut, I attempted to avoid them. But 
the young woman pursued me. She called me by 
name, and with such kindliness that I could not re- 
sist her persuasion to " come and see Uncle Ben ! " 
Uncle Ben, the first greeting over, whispered, — 
" She has no remembrance of the affair." 

In this surmise I am sure that he was correct, for 
while she spoke freely of other matters, and even 
of her dragoman, she showed not the slightest inter- 
est in him, beyond remarking that he was a great 
braggart. 

Six months later I received from the gentleman 
a letter which read, — "You will be glad to learn 
that my niece has been happily married to Mr. 

, of London, to whom she had been engaged 

for several years." 

Alas ! How unreliable is the human brain ! Men- 
tal machinery often gets "a bug in its wheels." 
Some things in my own life, — and in the lives of 
some of my friends — have been so decidedly foolish 
that they seem to have been due to lapse of intelli- 
gence. 



260 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



Still searching for change of thought I took a 
small coasting steamer at Beirut, and explored the 
Eastern Mediterranean. I was absolutely alone so 
far as home companions went, and thus dependent 
for conversation upon such chance acquaintances as 
I might be able to impress with the choicest selec- 
tion and most careful handling of my personal 
qualities. 

This is a profitable way to travel. It prevents 
one from developing his own idiosyncrasies, as one 
is apt to do when thrown constantly with those so 
familiar to us that we do not feel the restraint of 
their presence. Talking with strangers one treats 
them as one treats guests, giving them better en- 
tertainment than we indulge our own families in. 
Besides, when our travelling company is made up 
of home familiars much of the conversation is re- 
garding matters across the seas, which we have pre- 
sumably desired to forget. Our interest is divided. 
It is not easy for a group of persons to make indi- 
vidual acquaintances outside the group. Thus, be- 
ing alone, I was free to devote myself entirely to my 
foreign surroundings, and to study new and strange 
companions. 

One such person I must tell about, because of my 
interest in the character she revealed. Her face 
was as unprepossessing as one would find outside 
an Arab mummy-case. She seemed to have been 
desiccated by the winds, and discolored by the dust 
of the desert. She weighed less than seventy-five 
pounds, and was encased in a leather-like skin. Yet 



EEST CUEES 



261 



there was something fascinating about her top- 
heavy brow, and eyes emitting flashes of black light. 

I first descried her standing on the top rail of the 
deck, superintending the lifting of a score of Arab 
mares from a lighter into the ship. As the last of 
the animals was swung in between decks a Turkish 
official arrived. He read the law against the de- 
portation of horses, and demanded the instant re- 
turn of the beasts to the shore. The woman gave 
him a volley of abuse in Turkish, which was punc- 
tuated with profanity sufficiently cosmopolitan to 
be understood by bystanders of whatever national- 
ity. During this episode the ship raised anchor, 
and we were off. 

A tall Englishman later introduced me to the 
woman as his wife. Quite naturally I addressed 

her as Mrs. , using her husband's name. A 

neighbor corrected me aside. She was Lady , 

the granddaughter of Lord . My astonish- 
ment was increased when I learned that her nom 
de plume was that of an English authoress, well 
known for the grace of her pen, whose books I had 
read with delight. 

Which was she at heart — the coarse virago I had 
seen on the ship-rail, or the refined intellect I had 
read? For two weeks on our cruise I enjoyed her 
table-talk, notwithstanding the fact that it occa- 
sionally broke into stable-talk, — like a sore on a 
beautiful face. Yet her refinement was not merely 
intellectual. Now and then she revealed great 
depths of soul, passionately pure and sympathetic, 



262 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



such as are typical of the finest and sweetest 
womanhood. I could understand how that big 
awkward Englishman had fallen in love with her ; 
and also how at times his commoner qualities were 
congenial to her. But how account for the incon- 
gruities in herself? How does the black streak get 
into the Parian marble? 

On this same steamer was a British officer of 
rank, Colonel — later Sir — Charles Wilson. He 
was distinguished for service in the army, but was 
now filling high civil position. Our vessel sailed 
only at night, so that our days were free for inland 
explorations. Wherever we went the Colonel was 
well known. He arranged many a delightful excur- 
sion for our party, but he himself seemed to have 
absorbing business elsewhere. He surprised us 
with his detailed knowledge of places, roads, indi- 
viduals, customs. In reply to my expression of 
amazement at all this, he replied, — " Oh, we Brit- 
ish officers are supposed to know everything about 
everywhere. But for that the Empire could not 
build itself up. In a few days I shall leave you, 
and make my seventeenth journey between Smyrna 
and Trebizond. Yes, I am somewhat familiar with 
Egypt where you have been. Let me see your 
pocket map." He made a small circle east of the 
Nile. " Now for a prophecy. Trouble is brewing- 
there. If we have a fight it will be near that spot." 

Two years later Arabi Bey's Rebellion broke out. 
The world complained that the English did not 
chase him across the deserts. But one day there 



KEST CUEES 



263 



came the news of the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, in 
which the rebel was vanquished at a blow. It was 
at the centre of my circle. 

I then made a mental note for my guidance in 
reading future history : — " England will be strong 
and conquering, not so much because of the genius 
of individual leaders, but rather because of a per- 
sistent policy which all leaders understand, an aim 
toward which all can direct their energies, move- 
ments carefully anticipated, and preparations pa- 
tiently made. On the contrary our own country is 
living haphazard. An emergency, of either danger 
or opportunity, may find us totally unprepared." 
Kecent events have not occasioned any change of 
mind. 

If my vacation did not give me the needed 
change of thought it was not because of any lack of 
changing scenes. I had nosed into every nook from 
Alexandria to Alexandretta, and under the Taurus 
Mountains, through the iEgean, from the Dar- 
danelles to the Black Sea, and through the Gulf of 
Corinth to Italy. Dead Pharaohs in their coffins 
and the sore-eyed children of Egypt to-day, Phoeni- 
cian gods and the lying descendants of those who 
once worshipped them, Homeric heroes and the 
same sea-sick seas upon which they were tossed, 
the cataclysmic scenes of the Book of Revelation 
and the islands around Patmos which were still 
rocking with " mighty earthquake," — these had all 
contributed to my diversion. My mind was stuffed 
to cracking with heterogeneous recollections, not 



264 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



unlike the mass of spoil the Venetians took from 
conquered Constantinople, which has not yet, 
after six hundred years, been catalogued logically, 
chronologically, mythologically or theologically. 
Could my cranium ever be changed from a garret 
into a museum? 

I stopped at Home to let my brain rest, after in 
so brief a time having been transformed from a 
provincial American into a cosmopolitan. But the 
Eternal City was a worse jumble. Here antiquity, 
medievalism and modernity in its maddest fashions 
were hurled at me from every corner. 

Fortunately I found in Rome a philosopher who 
metaphorically trephined me, and relieved my brain 
of the confusion due to overpressure. I had reached 
Rome too late for the " Season." Thank Heaven ! 
My albergo had but a half-dozen guests. One gen- 
tleman greatly impressed me. He had a head as 
ponderous as that of John Bright or Gladstone, 
and a face as amiable as that of Martha Wash- 
ington. 

"Well, Young America, where have you been 
to-day? " was his introduction as he accosted me 
in the salon after dinner. Then followed a dis- 
course, historical, archaeological and critical, as 
illuminating as that which, thirty years after, I 
enjoyed from Lanciani or Duchesne. He gave me 
his name as Mister . No further informa- 
tion was secured from any person in the hotel. 
The following day I met an English resident of 
Rome, and mentioned my fellow lodger's erudition. 



KEST CUKES 



265 



" Of course, you are impressed with, it, as is all 
the rest of the world. He is the great Dr., Pro- 
fessor, Sir, Fellow of the A, B, 0, D, down to Z 
Societies of Great Britain, Germany and Zululand, 
Let me give you a hint. He is in Rome prac- 
tically incog. His last book made such a sensation 
that he has come to Rome in the summer time to 
escape being bored by admirers. I know him well 
enough, but he has not even notified me that he is 
here. So I take my revenge by being an informant 
against him. He has the keys to all the back-doors 
of our libraries, galleries and archives; but he 
allows nobody to have access to his quarters. If 
you should ' Professor ? him, or intimate that you 
knew him he would shut his mouth like a clam. 
But he is naturally a chatty old fellow. Lucky 
man, you! Only respect his incog, and you will 
find him a whole treasury." 

I took my friend's hint; and only "Mistered" 
the savant, with the result that within two weeks 
I took a complete post-graduate course in history, 
art and philosophy, with three or four hours' daily 
private coaching from one of the foremost educators 
in the world. Thus I ended my quest for " change 
of thought " by acquiring new thoughts that have 
stood by for over a third of a century. 



XI 
FRIENDS 

Friends Unlike Ourselves. 

' ' I count myself in nothing else so happy 
As in a soul remembering my good friends.' * 

SO said Bolingbroke in Richard II — and so 
say I. Yet my experience of friendship does 
not lead me to approve of some of the stereo- 
typed laws which are presumed to govern that 
gentle art. For example, Shakespeare makes 
Portia say that 

. . . "in companions 

There must needs be a like proportion 
Of lineaments, of manners and of spirit : 
Which makes me think that this Antonio, 
Being the bosom lover of my lord, 
Must needs be like my lord." 

On the contrary, my closest friends, those who 
have most attracted me, those whose love has been 
what old Robert Blair called "the mysterious 
cement of the soul," and have held me to them- 
selves in lifelong adhesion, have frequently been 
very unlike myself. As a rule they have not been 

266 



FKIENDS 



267 



members of my own profession, whom I meet al- 
most daily and with, them feed upon the same 
mental pabulum; nor were they those in my im- 
mediate social and neighborhood circles with whom 
I am supposed to have identical interests. They 
have been rather persons who have happened to 
cross my path as we pursued different occupations, 
led by dissimilar tastes, and often aiming at diverse 
ideals. As two drops of foreign liquids, having 
some subtle chemical affinity, unite at the touch, 
so have we. The assimilative property in each has 
been something subtler than anything I find in our 
conventional formulas for friendship ; indeed, some- 
thing that passes my power of analysis. 

Some one has said that we should " choose an 
author as we choose a friend." I try to ; and, there- 
fore, I delight chiefly in books that are devoid of 
the technicalities of my own daily occupation. I 
love a style as diverse from my own spavined, short- 
winded verbiage as are the rhetorical antipodes of 
Carlyle and Addison. Especially fascinating is a 
philosophy that makes me while reading feel that 
my brain is being elongated in spots, even if it be 
twisted into interrogation points. And so with the 
choice of friends. I get awfully tired of myself; 
and next to that I weary of the monotonous com- 
panionship of people who always agree with me. 

In this I must dissent from even the great Cicero, 
whose essay on Friendship seems to have been 
written simply "by the page," or whose habit as 
an hired advocate led him to follow up a subject 



268 ALONG- THE FRIENDLY WAY 



as he followed up a case in litigation, using every 
possible relevant saying, and leaving to the judges 
the duty of rejecting whatever was not true. The 
oratorical philosopher was known to have more 
egoism than friends, else his experience would have 
refuted his notion when he wrote, — "Friendship 
is a perfect conformity of opinions upon all re- 
ligious and civil subjects, united with the highest 
degree of mutual esteem and affection." And 
again, " Whoever is in possession of a true friend 
sees the exact counterpart of his own soul." 

Let me tell of some of my friends, and of what 
happy fellowship we have had in spite of the fact 
that we differed in ideas and tastes as much as the 
pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope differ in shape and 
color, yet combine in marvellous unity of reflected 
beauty. 

I am neither an artist nor a scientist ; yet a gen- 
tleman who was both, and was, moreover, so ab- 
sorbed in the technicalities of his double pursuit 
that I could not understand him when he mounted 
either of his favorite hobbies, admitted me to his 
heart, and let me ramble at will in its most secluded 
chambers. When absent we corresponded. There 
was in his letters no " art-study," except an occa- 
sional side-splitting lead-pencil caricature of men 
and scenes that mere language could not depict; 
and not enough science to determine whether he 
was abroad attending a meeting of the British 
Association or a cricket match. When we were 
together we told each other our secret fears and 



FRIENDS 



269 



hopes. We never " talked shop," for that was ex- 
cluded by our mutual ignorance of how the other 
kept the domestic pot boiling. We only sat, as it 
were, in our doorways like two neighborly house- 
wives, gossiping about the passing throng, and 
looking off toward the common horizon. 

We liked to vacation together in the country. 
We would start off in company for an afternoon; 
he with his easel to catch some secret of a flying 
wing, or some mystery of light that was shredded 
by the almost prismatic bark of a birch or beech 
tree; I with my rifle and a copy of some woodsy 
book, to rid the field of woodchucks and my mind 
of uncanny things that had burrowed there. A 
mile or two from home we would part so as not to 
interrupt each other in what he called our idiot- 
syncrazies (some good psychology in that), only 
keeping within hallooing distance for the sense of 
company. In the early gloaming we would tramp 
homeward with the familiarity of two boys who 
are joint partners in a string of fish. Then what 
revels o' nights, until our respective spouses grew 
jealous of us, and threatened lawsuit for alienation 
of marital affections ! 

When a shadow hung over me that was too sacred 
for priestly confessional, this man's cheer dispelled 
it. And to me he one day told a dread secret, 
known only to himself and his physician, — that 
death was not far away. So I walked with him 
along the brink until his foot slipped into the echo- 
less abyss. 



270 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



Ever since then I have felt " the footsteps of his 
life in mine." He still companions me in rambles 
through the familiar forest and glades. I think he 
is waiting to greet me just beyond the Great Woods ; 
and when I meditate about the last stretch home- 
ward I imagine that I hear his welcoming halloo 
from not very far away. How that takes the chill 
of loneliness out of an old fellow's bones! 

But we were so different! As diverse as the 
notch in the key and the ward in the lock ; our very 
unlikenesses fitting us the better for each other. 
Some day we will understand the strange mecha- 
nism of friendship. 

I am not an autopsist of dead languages ; yet one 
of my chums from boyhood was a man who 
dreamed in Greek, except when his nightmares in- 
sisted on whinnying in Latin. 

I have no trade-gumption or taste, yet there was 
a business devotee, the wheels in whose head were 
apparently adapted to nothing but a calculating 
machine or cash-register, who confessed that to 
drive a bargain was sweeter to him than music, 
sleep or dinner ; but he would bleed his pocketbook 
to supply any whim I might have. I would do the 
same for him, although I had not sufficient interest 
in his sort of life to even look over my butcher's 
monthly account. 

Another friend sends me annual volumes contain- 
ing reports of his expert work in a subject that 
absorbs his mind and heart ; but which I would not 
be hired to read without substituting in my in- 



FRIENDS 



271 



surance policy the words " lunatic asylum " for the 
word "death." But no table of statistics would 
be long enough to record the items of kindliness 
which for a half-century have passed between 
us. 

I think also of a group of very humble people, 
whose lack of education makes sustained conversa- 
tion upon almost any subject impossible. But we 
have delightful chats over the fence when the dog 
has gone to gather the herd, or over the counter 
when customers are slack, or in the little parlor 
when the kids have gone to sleep and we can talk 
about them without tickling their vanity. Though 
these people cannot tell me much that enlightens 
me, I love to hear the sound of their voices as I love 
Mendelssohn's " Songs Without Words." Their 
faces show their characters written in hieroglyph. 
How much beauty and goodness and inner charm I 
have learned to decipher there! There are, too, 
hand-shakes, so rough and hard that they make 
one's fingers ache, but which also make the heart's 
blood bound to livelier pulse, and impart health to 
both body and soul. One can appreciate what is 
said of a great philosopher, " He loved to be with 
the higher spirits and the lowly people." 

I am persuaded, then, that sameness of intel- 
lectual, aesthetic, cultural or even of religious ideals 
has little to do with the reciprocity of souls. 

Antagonistic Friends. 

I will go even further : — Positive antagonism of 



272 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



opinions and tastes do not menace friendship. We 
often love devotedly those whose ideas and ideals 
excite our dissent. 

George Eliot at one time thought differently. 
She sought to surround herself with individuals 
belonging to her school of ideas, her coterie of 
prejudices. She believed Cicero's saying, " Friend- 
ship is a perfect conformity of opinions." In later 
years she wrote : " I have had many heart-cutting 
experiences that opinions are a very poor cement 
for souls." 

Underlying the desire to be with those who agree 
with us in opinion is apt to be a thick layer of 
selfish love and conceit. We like to see our minds 
reflected in other minds, as those who are vain of 
their physical appearance delight in their mirrors. 
Nobler, if not happier, are they who prefer to have 
their walls hung with portraits of other people 
rather than with looking-glasses. 

Some of my most esteemed and helpful friends 
have been those with whom I have quarrelled, — let 
us hope only in an amiable way, as the old knights 
used to combat their brothers and neighbors in the 
tournament, and football players like to sprawl out 
their chums. 

One such good comrade I picked up in travelling. 
He was an Englishman at a time when our inter- 
national relations were a little strained; thickly 
English, with racial peculiarities exuding from 
every pore and dropping in " Lunnon " accents 
from his tongue, " Don't ye know? " He also be- 



FEIENDS 



273 



longed to that branch of the church with which I 
have the least sympathy, and religious antipathies 
are the hardest nuts to crack in free conversa- 
tion. 

My negative and I were stalled for the same 
voyage and journey. I felt at the prospect much 
as the fabled snake felt when he found himself 
sharing the den with a porcupine. This man was 
bristling with dogmatism, and had an unamiable 
way of sticking his quills out without provocation. 
I felt my fangs oiling up with acerbity, not to say 
with a little of the poison of theological rancor that 
even our most latitudinarian bigots must confess 
sometimes brews under their tongues. We fell to. 

I soon observed that my comrade was a man 
minutely learned in the history of his own cult, 
and skillfully trained in the dialectics that support 
it. I learned much from him, not only relating to 
the subjects we discussed, but also that which gave 
me new conceptions of human nature, the many- 
sidedness of humanity, how you can cut as many 
facets in a mind as in a diamond and each facet will 
shine as if it were the whole thing. 

I came gradually to enjoy my enforced com- 
panionship. I liked his sharp thrusts at my opin- 
ions even when they cut my skin. We became true 
sports; possibly of the windy, but not Thersites, 
sort. We wrangled by the hour on shipboard. We 
hurled jibes at each other as our horses stumbled 
over the rock-strewn fields of Syria. Our drago- 
man complained that our controversies were divid- 



274 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



ing the Arab baggage-carriers into two hostile 
camps, as they favored the one or the other of us, 
according to our tips, doubtless, for they couldn't 
understand a word of what we were quarrelling 
about. 

At a far eastern port our itineraries called for a 
parting of the ways. I grew lonesome in anticipa- 
tion. What would I do without my daily exercise 
in armor? Late at night my Reverse Ego entered 
my room : " Say, you heretic, would you object if 
I changed my route and went with you? " I was 
surprised at this, for several birds of his feather 
were expected to join him on the other course. 

So we resumed our campaign, the scenes of our 
journey furnishing opportune battle-fields. Turkey 
stirred our antagonism over Mahomet and the 
Koran. The sight of Greek temples revived in our 
breasts the controversies between Aristotelianism 
and modern thought. Rome made us furious with 
Risorgimento versus Vaticanism. We metaphoric- 
ally drank blood out of each other's skulls — having 
previously split them. There was really nothing 
left worth fighting about, every bone of contention 
having been chewed up between us. We parted 
on returning to Italy. 

I took the day train for Florence. I anticipated 
a lonesome time even in the Uffizi, where I knew 
that there were many things that might serve to 

whet our sword-points if had only come 

along with me. I dreamed of him that night. He 
looked like Goliath of Gath, and he was filling his 



FRIENDS 



275 



pockets with my pebbles from the brook, using up 
every one of them. 

The next morning, to my delighted amaze- 
ment, walked quickly into my hotel break- 
fast room and took his seat opposite me. He said 
apologetically, " I didn't know just what to do with 
myself after you went off ; so I took the night train 
and came too." We chummed together again as 
affectionately as two boarding-school girls; — then 
disagreed about the English habit of having jam 
instead of griddle-cakes for breakfast. 

I am persuaded that antagonism of opinions, 
where both parties mix their contention with a 
sweet reasonableness, is a healthful stimulant for 
good fellowship ; that contrariety of tastes adds to 
the charm of intercourse, where — to borrow a 
metaphor from the inlayer's art — there is a sub- 
stratum of courtesy so thick that the insets do not 
cut through nor break it. They lose immensely 
both in the enjoyment and profit of life who, in- 
stead of swinging wide open the doors of the heart 
that whoever will may enter, insist on cutting small 
holes adapted to their own size and shape, that 
those of unlike proportions may be excluded. I 
doubt if one can become really wise who does not 
debate with dissidents, or cultured without being 
rounded off by contact with those whose tastes are 
different from his own. Even our ideals may be 
corrected by knowing intimately the ideals of other 
persons as honest as ourselves, though they locate 
their stars in other parts of the heavens; just as 



276 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



the place and size of literal stars have been ac- 
curately determined only by close observation of 
the attraction of other stars that belong, it may be, 
to different constellations. 

I cannot understand how Nietzsche's love for 
Wagner could have rested, as a biographer sug- 
gests, upon his admiration of the musician's work 
or agreement with his philosophical speculations; 
nor how a change of political opinions produced 
the reaction of personal hatred. The play of passion 
was false, and must have been due to the conceit of 
the German superman, who loved nothing that he 
did not regard as a reflection of himself, — the be- 
ginning of the madness of egotism that brought 
him ultimately to the insane asylum. 

Odd Friendships, 

I may further illustrate from my own experience 
the fact that difference of tastes, talents, opinions, 
conditions of life and even of imputed character, do 
not prevent real friendships. 

When I recall Bill I am tempted to pray, 

in the sentiment of the Pharisee, " I thank 
Thee, O God, that I am not as some other men — 
even Bill." But when I think over his whole 
career, his handicaps along the road of virtuous 
living, his fight with wild beasts of which we draw- 
ing-room saints know nothing, I wonder if really 
Bill did not far outclass the most of us in the 
opinion of the angels. 

Bill's physiognomy was as strange as his life. 



FEIENDS 



277 



He had a finely intellectual forehead that made a 
fitting facade for the big, bald and glistening dome 
of thought that rose behind it. His eyes were 
beautiful in spite of what they had been accustomed 
to look out upon — as blue and soft as the sky over 
the Dead Sea. But his nose was sadly awry. It 
had been broken by the same blow of a policeman's 
club that had shattered his jaw. 

I was introduced to Bill by another of my 
esteemed friends, an ex-convict who had founded a 
home for discharged prisoners. 

" Bill's the best man that ever walked out of jail ; 
as true steel as his jimmy used to be," was Mike 
Dunn's comment. 

Bill and I spent many a half -hour together, talk- 
ing about prison reform, tramp life, safe-cracking, 
upper-crust hypocrites, namby-pamby philanthro- 
pists, the future life and where we would like to 
go when we got our tickets-of -leave. He one day 
asked me to loan him a book or two, to help him 
retrieve some of his lost years in an educational 
way. As I knew of no Sunday-school books quite 
virile enough to hold his attention, I took from the 
shelf Dickens' " Oliver Twist," with Cruikshank's 
catchy illustrations. On returning the book Bill 
made this comment : 

" The man what wrote that book was a hard 'un. 
Some repaired thief, eh? " 

I defended the renowned novelist from this im- 
putation. 

Bill insisted : " He must 'a' been ; for nobody but 



278 ALONG THE FBIENDLY WAY 



a man who as a child had been put through the key- 
hole to unlock doors from the inside could V writ 
it. I know, for I was brought up that way. Un- 
less you've been the real thing you can't describe 
it, any more than you can guess the combination of 
a safe-door." 

Bill then told me his life story. He never knew 
who his father was. Of his mother he retained 
only shadowy recollections, — shadowy in a double 
sense. There was a man who claimed to be his 
uncle, and played the prerogative of such rela- 
tionship by " walloping " him whenever, as a 
child, he hesitated to pick a pocket, steal a key or 
purloin anything else that was convenable to the 
cracksman's project. Bill showed such talent for 
his calling that while still in his early teens he was 
matriculated at the town jail; soon advanced 
to the penitentiary where he spent some years 
under the tuition of the ablest members of 
the profession who were similarly retained with 
pension allowance for board and lodgings from the 
State. He graduated with such honors that he was 
soon chosen to be the head of a select company of 
Plug TJglies. His reputation was country -wide 
when he was tried for a murder. From this 
charge he was acquitted on the failure of the evi- 
dence to prove beyond doubt that he had actually 
fired the fatal shot. It was while resisting arrest 
for this crime that he received the blow that dis- 
figured his otherwise handsome face. 

Bill confessed to me that his conscience was so 



FKIENDS 



279 



tender that he could not object to the twenty years' 
sentence for his part in the melee. " But," said 
he, stopping short in his narrative, " I oughtn't tell 
you these things. It won't hurt you, but it hurts 
me. You see when I remember what I was and 
what I did there comes on me a sort of craziness to 
go back and do them over again. It was all so ex- 
citing that just to think of it heats me up and sets 
me shaking like a locomotive engine gettin' up 
steam. Lying alone so much of the time in the 
prison it was the only recreation I had to imagine 
I was out again on the road. When wide-awake in 
the cell at night, when working all day eyes-front 
and tongue-tied making brooms or cracking stones, 
when doing the lock-step going to chapel and meals, 
I've planned more deviltry than I could handle in a 
double lifetime, even if I wasn't caught and inter- 
rupted in the jobs. It's thinking over past things, 
things that ought to be forgot, that's what helps 
most to damn a convict. You just tell that to your 
philanthropist friends." 

"With your new purpose in life, Bill, I should 
imagine that thinking over the old things would 
only make you hate them." 

" Well, it ain't so," he responded. "An old crim- 
inal's thoughts are like what the smell of whiskey 
is to a bum. He may shake his feet at the saloon 
door when he first swears off, but just as like enough 
he'll go back and drink if he gets into the smell 
of it." 

" I'm sorry, Bill, that I lent you Oliver Twist." 



280 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



" So am I," said he. " But you meant it all 
right, and I stood it for a while. Thank God and 
Mike Dunn that I've got some new and clean grit 
into me." 

So we would talk. Bill taught me more psy- 
chology than I ever read in books, and more evan- 
gelical matter than was ever dropped on my head 
from a pulpit. 

Six years later I received from the superin- 
tendent of a city mission a letter which said, 

" William is dead. All these years he lived 

among us as an humble, consistent Christian. He 
was a great inspiration to us all." 

I am glad Bill and I were such good pals. 

Descensus Averno. 

BilPs life is not a part of my own biography. 
Yet I am not so sure of that. It was like a strange 
scene alongside of a path. You cannot dissociate 
the scene from the way you have gone. 

My life-path has led me down into what I may 
call aesthetic and moral lowlands. I will venture 
another incident. I drag it up from a deep, and, 
to my eye as a social economist, a bottomless abyss. 

A horrible murder had been committed in a great 
western city where I was spending some weeks. A 
notorious yeggman of the worst type had been in- 
dicted for the crime. A gentleman who had gained 
great repute as a criminal lawyer was engaged for 
the defense. After studying the case he became 
convinced that the man, whatever other misdeeds 



FKIENDS 



281 



he may have been guilty of, was innocent of this 
particular act of fiendishness. 

To do justice to his client it was necessary that 
he should meet certain persons who lived so far 
down in the lowest stratum of the " submerged 
tenth " that they seldom floated up even to the 
level of the streets in daylight. It was impossible 
to get these men to come to his office. They had a 
warranted fear of detectives if they should emerge 
from their burrows. The lawyer must go to them. 

"An interesting job," I remarked. "Apt to be 
exciting." 

" If you think so, come along with me," replied 
my friend. " To-night at eleven some plain clothes 
men from the police quarters will be at the corner 

f Street, and will see me safe so long as 

they can see me at all ; but when I plunge down into 
a hole they will not be responsible for me. So the 
Chief of Police warns me; but there will be no 
danger. They know me down there. I've saved 
the necks of some of that class. So I am persona 
grata to Lucifer, thanks to my unsavory reputa- 
tion ! There are some malodorous plants the scent 
of which becomes their protection from things that 
prey upon other plants. We criminal lawyers have 
that sort of immunity. If you can stand me you 
had better come along." 

It was late at night. We went down 

Street; entered a small cigar shop where some 
cryptic words with a man behind the counter in- 
duced him to let us out through a back-door into 



282 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



an unlighted yard. Across this a door opened into 
a dark passageway. Having threaded this we stood 
suddenly in a brilliantly lighted hall. 

This transformation scene suggested that we had 
been transported through both time and space; 
that this was one of the veritable Arabian Nights, 
and that Chicago had become Bagdad. The illu- 
sion was, however, spoiled by the furniture of the 
place, which consisted chiefly of card and roulette 
tables. 

My friend called my attention to one of the most 
intent card-players; a gentleman whom the people 
that voted for him imagined to have his seat under 
the dome of our State Capitol, surrounded by 
statues of Justice and Liberty, and commemorative 
of the great and good Americans who had sacrificed 
themselves on the altar of their country. 

I expressed to my companion my surprise that he 
should come to so elegant a haunt of vice to seek 
the peculiar quarry he had described to me. 

" You can never tell," he replied, " since the frogs 
from the Nile once came up into Pharaoh's bath- 
tub." 

He spoke for a moment with a low-browed, corru- 
gate-faced, but elegantly dressed man. " That 
fellow," said he afterward, " is a sort of rat in the 
sewer connection between the high and low life of 
the city. I have gotten from him the tip I needed. 
Come!" 

Half a block away we made a deeper descensus 
AvernOy and landed in a small room packed to 



FEIENDS 



283 



suffocation with negroes. The black mass fairly 
writhed about a table where one threw the dice on 
which they risked their dimes and quarters. From 
their eagerness one might have thought that they 
were trying to rescue one of their number from a 
sunken mine. 

Here my friend got another clue, a dirty one in- 
deed, which dropped us even lower down the social 
ladder. I cannot soil the white paper on which I 
am writing by attempting to describe the scene we 
next witnessed. I have threaded my way through 
a back alley in Cairo on a torrid night, when a yard 
of clothing sufficed for a score of human beings; 
but here, with a Christian church clock striking the 
hour, and with the " finest " policemen in the world 
beating time on the adjacent sidewalk, I assure you 
that other scene in the oriental Tophet was utterly 
outclassed in indecency. For any similitude I must 
borrow VirgiPs description of the Harpies : " Fowls 
with virgin faces, most loathsome . . . hands 
hooked, and faces pale." 

" Do you see that beast over yonder? " asked my 
guide. " She was once a somewhat noted singer. 
I have heard her in opera. Later she was the town 

sensation in vaudeville. Now Well! a few 

more maniacal shrieks, and they will bury her in 
the Potter's Field." 

I protested against any further prospecting 
through Inferno. 

" But you couldn't get home from here alone, 
I'll make only one more search." 



281 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



We next entered a low saloon at the dark end of 
a filth-reeking alley. We were stopped at the 
entrance by a woman the hardness and ill-balance 
of whose features suggested the fabled portress of 
hell. A few cabalistic words opened the way for 
us into a back room, where there sat around a beer- 
soaked table four or five bullet-headed men. As 
we entered they rose quickly to their feet as if to 
repel any invasion of their den. 

" It's all right, J acks," barked the woman who 

had followed us. " It's only giving the 

name of my friend. 

I saw that I was not wanted among these friends 
in council, and accepted the invitation of the she 
monster to sit in the anteroom. 

Had it not been for the diabolical novelty of the 
situation I should have deserted my comrade, and 
risked being bludgeoned at the door-sill. But that 
woman's ugliness fascinated me, very much as I 
was once held by the filthy mud geyser in the 
Yellowstone. It seemed to me that I had drifted 
back through the geological ages, and had en- 
countered one of the beasts just endowed with 
human reason. I had always been interested in 
palseontological studies, so I stuck it out for a 
half-hour until my friend reappeared. But those 
thirty minutes moved slowly, and they have left a 
very sore spot in my memory. 

Since that night humanity has widened its 
ranges, and has been to me a more complicated, 
involved problem than I had dreamed of before. 



FRIENDS 



285 



Saintly men and women sprouting wings to fly 
heavenward and this vile stuff crawling out of 
primeval human mud belong to the same race! I 
professed belief in Christianity which proposed to 
lift the lowest into the highest form of the species. 
Could I believe it? I had to think of Bill in order 
to rescue my faith. 

My legal friend said to me as we returned home, 
" I have learned enough to-night to prove an alibi 
for my client. But unfortunately I couldn't induce 
one of those fellows to appear as a witness. If he 
did his character is such that his testimony would 
not be believed by any jury. Besides, this crowd 
couldn't exonerate my client except by damning 
themselves as the real perpetrators of the crime. 
Now what would you do if in my place? " 

I could give him no advice. His wisdom or 
shrewdness stood him in good stead ; for later he so 
managed the case without revealing his informants 
that the guilt of his client was regarded by the jury 
as not sufficiently proven. 

On parting with me the lawyer said, " You know 
that I have been offered the nomination for District 
Attorney. I have two reasons for not taking it. 
First, my life wouldn't be worth a candle flame if 
I should ever have to prosecute any of this gang, 
since they have once given me their confidence ; for 
what they have told me they regard as sacredly 
safe as if they had told it at a priest's confessional. 
Secondly, I could not do it honorably. There is 
6 honor among thieves/ and there ought to be 



286 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



honor among criminal lawyers. What do you 
think? " 

I have been thinking ever since. 

Beneath the Skin. 

My life, having been one of a semi-public char- 
acter, has brought me into contact and some 
familiarity with men distinguished for presumed 
attainments in the various arts and professions or 
for leadership in popular enterprises. My recol- 
lection of some of them — I trust that I am not un- 
duly depreciatory — leaves me surprised at their 
repute, and also at the gullibility of the general 
public. 

Many a flash of genius is like a gleam of gold in 
a pile of dirt. It attracts the attention of those 
who are out prospecting for celebrities, as are all 
newspaper reporters. A happy, almost accidental, 
turn of tact is interpreted as astuteness. Some- 
thing that happens to catch the popular sentiment 
at the moment, a speech, a book, a poem, brings 
repute, as the invention of the " return ball " play- 
thing and the concocting of chewing gum are -said 
to have been rewarded by fortunes. 

I was thrown much with a gentleman who had 
attained a considerable notoriety as a mirth-breeder 
on the platform. In ordinary conversation he was 
utterly juiceless. He carefully conserved every 
particle of soul moisture that percolated through 
his rather arid nature, and sold it to the public who 
grinned their delight at fifty cents a head. 



FRIENDS 



287 



I have known certain preachers who had a mar- 
vellous knack of " putting things " to a congrega- 
tion, but whose opinion on any subject that re- 
quired sound practical judgment, theological, social, 
philanthropic, scientific, moral or even domestic — 
for this I have their wives' testimony — was utterly 
negligible. 

A somewhat noted publicist once boasted to me 
that he had never been guilty of advancing a new 
idea. Prom many conversations with him I am led 
to believe that he was sincere and correct in this 
judgment. He read omnivorously upon popular 
topics — politics, science, literature, it mattered not 
what might be uppermost in the public mind — and, 
having a knack at condensation together with an 
easy rhetoric, he passed as a prospector in many 
fields. 

Some popular books on science have been written 
by men who would never have been trusted with a 
test-tube in the laboratory, who from personal in- 
spection would scarcely distinguish a stratum of 
sand-stone of the Palaeologic Age from the con- 
crete floor of an abandoned factory, and whose 
knowledge of the stars was limited to their own 
reflections from the printed page. 

" Tell me," said a tourist with note-book and 
camera in Northern Italy, " is Italy a Republic or 
a Kingdom? " Yet this man was " doing " that 
part of the Peninsula for an American period- 
ical. 

In public movements flag-carrying is often taken 



288 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



for real leadership. Or it may be that circum- 
stances, as in a football game, have thrust a very 
ordinary individual, as it were, through a break in 
the opposing line, and he seems to the crowd to have 
been the directing hero of the whole combat. 

In politics this is not uncommonly so. If a cer- 
tain party has the majority of votes in a district it 
will constitute a tide that will float almost any sort 
of driftwood to success. One is depressed with this 
fact if he has had much to do with the common run 
of Aldermen, Assemblymen and Congressmen ; and 
the soul of the patriot is not fully cheered by close 
acquaintance with some of our Governors and 
Senators. 

I have interested myself during many years in 
watching the development of some of our " leaders." 

The Honorable Sam will serve me for a 

specimen of the tribe. 

Too lazy to study, Sam was enabled to enter col- 
lege by the need of the college treasurer for tuition 
fees. He was allowed to graduate cum laude be- 
cause the class roll for that year showed a diminu- 
tion in numbers. He studied law because the ex- 
judge in whose office he " read " was an aspirant 
for political preferment, and needed the influence 
of Sam's father. From contact with the judge and 
the frequenters of the office Sam acquired the itch 
for politics. Blackstone was too dry for him, while 
Tom, Dick and Harry, each with a vote in his 
pocket, were very interesting. If he knew little 
about the statesmen of the world, Sam did become 



FRIENDS 



289 



almost an expert biographer of the electors of his 
ward. His proficiency in the study of foreign af- 
fairs was shown chiefly in his helpfulness toward 
certain aliens whom he induced to become American 
citizens within five years of their landing in the 
United States, and whose patriotism he stimu- 
lated by assisting them to prepare their first bal- 
lots. 

A dead-lock having occurred between two fac- 
tions in his party, both united upon Sam as a " dark 
horse," whereupon he rode triumphantly into the 
mayorality of his city, which had just emerged from 
village short clothes into municipal manhood. By 
judicious distribution of patronage between two 
factions he united his own party, and by orating a 
few platitudes about reform he won over some dis- 
gruntles from the opposite party, and was projected 
into a State Senator-ship. Here his career was 
threatened because his ignorance of practical af- 
fairs disqualified him for committee work, and his 
lack of usefulness in the Senate failed to attract to 
him the attention of the outside lobbyists who were 
looking for men capable of rolling their logs into 
the stream of legislation. 

Sam must change his field. Then why not seek a 
wider, rather than a narrower, one? He spent sev- 
eral evenings studying up national history. He 
read a number of good articles on Jefferson and 
the Federalists, a handbook on the Constitution, a 
few speeches of Webster and Lincoln. He was able 
to lard his natural oratorical glibness with quota- 



290 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



tions from the Fathers of the Republic ; made a fair 
Fourth of July address ; was nominated and elected 
to Congress. Here he voted right on the Tariff; 
got leave to print in the Record an unuttered speech 
which he franked by the thousands to his con- 
stituents, some of whom recognized generous un- 
acknowledged quotations from letters they had 
written him. He might have been returned to his 
seat in the council of the nation were it not that he 
made a wrong guess as to the faction which would 
control the party primary. 

Sam has occupied his recent leisure in compiling 
a patchwork biography of himself, made up of vari- 
ous press notices of the "Young Gladstone of 
America." 

This illustration of how some of our public men 
are made suggests an incident which will reveal the 
secret of the failure of some of our ablest men to 
reach responsible positions. Among my neighbors 
was a brilliant young lawyer. He had inherited his 
talent from a remarkable family well known in the 
land. His reputation for character gave weight to 
his recognized ability. The times were out of joint. 
The " submerged tenth " was oozing upward and 
had almost gotten the control of the community. 
It was the time for some young Hercules to cleanse 
the Augean stable. Who better qualified than my 
friend? He was eloquent and resourceful ; he must 
lead. His nomination was settled upon. 

He refused to heed the popular call. We knew 
that he was ambitious, and the golden stairway was 



FRIENDS 



291 



revealed right before him. We knew his high ideal 
of community service, and appealed straight to his 
conscience. But without avail. He listened. Now 
and then his eyes glistened as if his soul were 
putting on armor for the good fight ; then he shook 
his head, — " Gentlemen, it is impossible ! " We 
watched him walk the floor, and each time he turned 
expected a favorable reply, but none came. The 
case involved some mystery, for he made no counter 
argument to our solicitations. 

When the others had gone, he turned suddenly to 
me, sat down by my side, and burst into tears. He 
then told me the reason for his refusal. 

" I could not open my heart to the others, but, as 
you have been my own friend and my father's 
friend, I am going to ask you to let me crawl into 
your heart in confidence. No man knows the agony 
which my refusal costs me. It is not because I do 
not care for public office or have no interest in the 
reform of affairs; but I am absolutely unfit for 
office. Until this moment no one but God and my- 
self has known that I am the victim of a chronic 
temptation that will one day ruin my reputation as 
it has already ruined my peace. When that day 
comes I shall slink away and lose myself in the un- 
known crowd that I now despise. I will creep 
away through the big shadow that hangs over all 
life. I dare not enlarge my personality by taking 
a public position. If you knew all, you would be 
the last to ask me. If I fall, I fall alone. That 
much I owe to my fellow-men. That you think I 



292 



ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



have ability only cuts me the deeper. I am like a 
captain who knows that lie has a rotten ship in 
which he dares not sail. I must have no respon- 
sibility except to myself." 

A little while later we buried this man. A mean 
worm that no one else saw had felled the grand oak. 

I wonder if this is not the secret of our disap- 
pointment in many of our young men. Sometimes 
the vice that slays has not really poisoned the blood 
and brought the physical disaster, but is as yet only 
a habit of mind, absorbing the time that might be 
given to better thinking, choking the growth of wise 
opinions, clogging the balance of the finer judg- 
ment, and stilling with its fetid air the purity of 
the soul's breathing. But often, as in the case 
narrated, the self-knowledge of the secret pro- 
pensity makes the man a moral coward. He would 
feel hypocritical if lie should prate in public about 
the virtue he is conscious of not possessing. Thus 
the very remnant of his virtue, his self -consistency, 
paralyzes his moral action. With highest ideals, 
strongest incentives, conscious ability and all cir- 
cumstances moving him toward success like a tide, 
the man is an imbecile. 

I must give a foil to the bad impression made 
by these incidents by letting the reader see through 
my memory a very different public character. Mr. 

was very prominent in the legal profession, 

and well known for his advocacy of good govern- 
ment. He was offered a nomination to Congress, 
but declined it, as he said to me, " Because I would 



FEIENDS 



293 



be too much beholden to certain men whom I do 
not believe in, but who are pushing my nomination. 
I would not be free." 

A few years later this gentleman was elected 
Governor of one of our States. The bee for other 
similar advancement got " into his bonnet." The 
United States Senatorship was offered him by the 
engineers of the party machine. At the same time 
they had put through the Legislature a partisan 
bill which was waiting for his signature. 

A mutual friend told me of this scene. " It was 
late at night. We had talked for some time over 
political affairs. Picking up the bill the Governor 
said, 6 1 ought not to sign that.' I replied, ' But, 
Governor, you know the consequences of a refusal/ 
For a long time neither of us spoke. The Gov- 
ernor took long walks up and down the room. He 
then sat down at the table ; read and reread various 
passages of the document ; asked a question or two 
about their significance; leaned his head upon his 
hands. I watched his face. The man was having 
a struggle. His countenance was eloquent with 
the combat that was being waged behind its mus- 
cles. At length he brought his big hand down upon 
the paper, and with set jaw muttered as if to him- 
self and oblivious of my presence, ' I will not sign 
it. It would make a bad precedent for future legis- 
lation. I prefer to take the consequences of the 
refusal.' " 

The Governor took the consequences, and has 
been out of ixditics ever since. He was never 



294 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



cognizant of the fact that I knew of that scene. 
But one day we were talking of Mr. Lincoln : 

" Governor, what in your mind was the supreme 
moment in Lincoln's life? " 

He replied as calmly as if the question had been 
one in which he had no especial personal inter- 
est : 

" When, in his debate with Mr. Douglas, he de- 
liberately sacrificed his prospect of being sent to 
the Senate rather than abate one jot from his pro- 
nounced free-soil principles." 

" But/' I replied, " the people remembered that 
unselfish act of Mr. Lincoln, and it ultimately won 
him the Presidency." 

" True," said the Governor, " but Lincoln didn't 
know what was to follow. He made his choice in 
utter disinterestedness, willingly sacrificing all per- 
sonal ambition for a principle. I have often 
thought of that act of self-immolation as marking 
the high water-mark, not, perhaps in his public 
career, but certainly in the development of his 
character. And character is more than career." 

Many men have paraded in the stolen toga of 
Abraham Lincoln. I have here told of this one man 
to whom the great martyr seems to have lent his 
mantle. 

I could illustrate the haphazard of reputation 
from the characters of some of my acquaintances 
who were reputed to be philanthropists. I recall 
one gentleman who, I am sure, never looked inten- 
tionally, inquiringly, sympathetically into the dis- 



FRIENDS 



295 



tressed face of a fellow-man. More than one home 
was broken up by his cruel exaction of the pound of 
flesh in the way of mortgage interest and rent. 
His chief renown while living was for the shrewd- 
ness with which he wrecked a certain railroad cor- 
poration. But after his death he was canonized — 
by the newspapers — as a saint after the order of 
Joseph of Arimathea. 

I may tell how this came about as it was told me 
by his legal adviser, a man of very similar char- 
acter who had engineered some of his client's skin- 
flint projects, and was not even ashamed to boast 
of the part he had taken in revamping his reputa- 
tion. 

"You know that old , though he never 

shadowed a church door and was always blasphem- 
ing against preachers, was all the while awfully 
afraid of dying. When the doctors gave him a hint 
that it was all up with him, he talked to me as if I 
were his priest, and could help him out of the devil's 
clutches, as I had on more than one occasion helped 
him out of the clutches of more visible adversaries. 

" You know," continued my informant, " I go to 

the Church ; at least that is where I pay for 

the pew my wife sits in when her mirror prods her 
conscience on a Sunday morning. Now I really 
wanted to solace the old man, and suggested that, 
as he had no relatives to dispute his will, he ought 
to make a donation to our church, which was just 
then trying to raise money for a new edifice. 
Jokingly I told him about the played-out de- 



296 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



bauchees, condottieri and others of that kidney who 
had endowed altars and got their names carved on 
cathedral walls. I don't believe that he really 
thought there would be any virtue in imitating these 
worthy examples, but he was never a man to take 
a risk if he could ' hedge himself.' Hence his post- 
humus philanthropy, that 6 Splendid Bequest,' 
that 6 Spontaneous Effusion of a Great Heart ' 
referred to in his obituary notices." 

I would not leave the impression that this sort of 
philanthropist or this sort of legal adviser was 
typical of my generation. Fleas are somewhat 
natural to dogs. Perhaps I had better give a few 
contrasting pictures just to save my repute for 
having been at all associated with either of the 
above-mentioned gentlemen. 

I was walking with a friend who had recently 
lost a member of his family to whom he had been 
tenderly attached. We were speaking of memorial 
monuments. I quoted an Arab tradition that 
Mahomet was once approached by a man who said, 
" O Prophet, my mother is dead. What shall I do 
to commemorate her virtues?" "Dig a well," re- 
plied the Prophet. That is probably the sugges- 
tion of the many trickling streams one sees in 
Moslem cemeteries. 

A few days later my friend said to me, "I am 
going to dig a well ! I will make an annex to our 

hospital, and endow it. I think , who was so 

loving to everybody, would like that better than 
anything in ostentatious marble," 



FRIENDS 



297 



I have been permitted in my long life to see many- 
such streams trickling from wells that are deep in 
human hearts, and sending refreshing waters 
through the deserts of suffering. Many men and 
women have I known " of whom the world is not 
worthy," and of whom, in the inscrutable methods 
of Divine Providence, the world has never heard. 

One of the most beautiful local charities, now in 
its semi-centennial existence, owes its start, not to 
any well-known benefactress or association, but to 
a poor little crippled child whom I often found 
working with her aching fingers to relieve the woes 
of her class, until at length others with pecuniary 
means and leisure were hypnotized by her example 
and followed it. 

I was very fond of Mr. . He was far gone 

with consumption, yet in order to feed his body 
while it lasted he was obliged to work ten hours a 
day in a factory. I interested myself to find some 
restful recreation for his evenings, but he had found 
for himself a satisfactory way of occupying his 
leisure hours. Leisure! With racking cough and 
blood-spitting! Until after midnight he would be 
upon the street, seeking out some over-tempted fel- 
low-workman. Out of his meagre savings he pro- 
vided a " rescue camp " in the slums, and there 
organized a life-saving corps of men whom he in- 
spired with the spirit of his own helpfulness. 

The men at the factory took a day off for his 
funeral. But the newspapers, that made full 
notice of every foible of society, every slip of 



298 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



ignorant virtue, every mistake of the best inten- 
tioned goodness, never discovered that this man had 
lived and died. 

u God knows His own." I am grateful that He 
let me know some of them too. 



XII 



RETIREMENT 



A Mistake for Many. 




HEN — to talk in Dantesque style — I was 
midway the circle of my seventh, decade 
I realized the wisdom in the lines which 



the poet puts into the mouth of Guido da Monte- 
f eltro describing that period of life : 

" Quando mi vidi giunto in quella parte 
Di mia eta, ove ciascun dovrebbe 
Calar le vele e raccoglier le sarte. 7 7 

I, too, had reached the time of life when " every- 
body ought to lower sail and coil up the ropes." 
That is, I proposed to retire from the rush of pro- 
fessional life. 

There were, however, about me some warnings 
against such a policy. Among my age-limping con- 
temporaries were those who had discovered that 
men are not like bears, which hibernate safely and 
snugly when the chill gets into their blood. 

Some confessed that in their anticipated otium 
cum dignitate they found neither dignity nor ease. 
As for dignity, having shown a disposition to drop 
the world, the world reciprocated the slight by 



299 



300 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



dropping them. This might have been expected, for 
mutual service is ever the bond of mutual respect. 
The world has so many hurts that it ignores any one 
who does not carry with him a little court-plaster, 
or have a sunshiny face for its sanitation. We must 
not seek to retire within ourselves, but to get closer 
to kindred humanity. We should use our freedom 
from other cares to cultivate 

"A heart at leisure from itself 
To soothe and sympathize. ' ' 

I felt greatly complimented the other day when a 
ragged urchin of some four years held me up on the 
sidewalk with, " Say, mister, won't you fix my 
wagon? It's done got broke." I thanked the child 
for asking me. He forgot to thank me, in his eager 
delight that his wagon worked again. But his glee 
was better than any words. It is good to have even 
the dumb brutes neigh or bark or purr at you. 
Charles Kingsley could never have grown old with 
this sentiment : 

"Do the work that's nearest, 
Though it's dull at whiles, 
Helping when you meet them 
Lame dogs over stiles. ' ' 

As for the comforts of retirement ; having brought 
with themselves into their social retreats the habits 
of restless activity induced by their past lives, 
many discover more aches than easements in trying 
to sit still. There are those who have made enough 



RETIREMENT 



301 



money to " blow themselves " into any luxury, and 
yet feel as Lord Byron says that Childe Harold did : 

' ' With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe, 
And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades 
below. ' ' 

A lawyer of my acquaintance, affected by what 
he imagined to be the hook-worm of weariness with 
the routine of his profession, retired from court and 
office, but frequently caught himself at night argu- 
ing a case before His Honor the bedpost. 

Once when voyaging through Sicilian seas I was 
struck with the sombre and discontented look on 
the face of a fellow passenger. I hesitated to ad- 
dress him, feeling that he might be a willing pris- 
oner to his own thought, nursing some bitter mem- 
ory, or pondering some problem too weighty for 
lesser minds to appreciate. Feeling somewhat 
chatty I at length accosted him. Instead of resent- 
ing the intrusion he welcomed it. Learning that I 
was travelling alone he almost embraced me. 

" It will be a godsend, sir, if you will let me walk 
and talk with you on shipboard. I'm alone too; 
and the feeling of it almost literally puts me 6 be- 
tween the Devil and the deep sea.' I'm not a mur- 
derer nor a thief, but neither of those individuals 
could be a worse comrade than I am to myself." 

I learned that the man had been a prosperous 
cotton-broker in New Orleans. Having amassed an 
independent fortune he determined to become an 
independent liver, see the world, sip its pleasures, 



302 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



and get rid of all its detailed obligations. He had 
marked out for himself a two years' itinerary de 
luxe. He was now only in the second month of his 
anticipated Paradise, but was already wearied with 
the monotony of incessantly seeing something new. 
He was as restless to get home to the flats, the 
levees, the torrid streets and stuffy offices of New 
Orleans as a horse is to get back to his stable after 
the shortest drive. For his accustomed crib among 
the cotton bales, the pawing of the trade hoofs of 
his business associates on the floor of the Exchange, 
he was ready to give up the snowy sides of Etna, the 
opalescent waters of the Ionian Sea, and all the 
gods of Olympus. 

The reason for this ennui in the most entrancing 
spot on the globe was that his mind had been un- 
trained to anything except his special business. He 
had never communed with the Homeric deities 
whose names are perpetuated on headland and isle ; 
never felt the touch of the sublime in nature; was 
not familiar with history or art ; and knew too lit- 
tle of the things that tourists seek even to converse 
interestedly with his fellow voyagers. But he was a 
" successful man," and no doubt had provided for a 
monument in the cemetery which should perpetuate 
his local celebrity as a prominent citizen and an ex- 
ample to the ambitious young men of the coming 
generation. 

But lack of culture is not the only drawback to 
contented retirement. Among my acquaintances 
was a lady who had been a noted cantatrice on two 



EETIREMENT 



303 



continents. Almost from girlhood she had been the 
favorite of courts and crowds. Impresarios had 
bid high for her voice to augment their gains, and 
the gems of princes loaded her toilet-table. This 
world-songstress had scarcely reached middle life 
when some wicked bacterial imp of darkness, hav- 
ing no discernment in his work, preyed upon those 
rarest of vocal cords. She retired from the stage 
and the lime-light. The remainder of her life was 
spent in bitter-sweet reminiscence of what she had 
once been. She was no longer a life, but only a 
memory. She had many other gifts of talent and 
disposition which would have made her a popular 
leader in almost any circle had she been inclined to 
enter it, but she buried herself in her past, and was 
apparently more depressed with the weight of the 
pall than cheered by its spangles. 

I am convinced from both observation and ex- 
perience that, unless one has some other resource of 
satisfaction than those provided by business, pro- 
fession, or the passing incidents of active life, the 
lure of retirement will prove, as Hudibras puts it : 

"An ignis fa tuns that bewitches 
And leads men into pools and ditches." 

My own case I conceived would be different 
since my real interests in life had been those of a 
general student of affairs rather than in the de- 
tailed routine of a practitioner of my special call- 
ing. 



304 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



I could spend my time in reading. For this I had 
a voracious appetite, and my shelves were full of 
uncut leaves which I would consume with the de- 
light of a silkworm on a mulberry tree. Or, if the 
impulse should seize me — as no doubt it would, for 
I was somewhat of a crank for controversy — I could 
write; and, as I had not made myself altogether 
objectionable with publishers and journalists, my 
pen splutterings might be reduced to print. Or, if 
occasion should call for it, I could go to the plat- 
form and orate upon the vital topics of the day. 
And then, if through failure of the flesh or failure 
of the public to listen, this were denied to me, I 
could at least adopt the role of a dilettante phi- 
losopher, sit on the fence, and amuse myself in 
criticizing the passing throng of humanity. Beside 
all these I had some hobbies I could ride, and thus 
make my own merry-go-round divertisements in the 
side-show of existence. 

Other considerations helped my resolution to slip 
off the yoke. For instance, I found that anything 
like mere personal success had become smldenly de- 
magnetized as an incentive. Ambition for secular 
gain had played itself out. My children were grown 
and doing for themselves, so there was no longer 
need that I work for their support, and my savings 
were enough to keep the marrow in my bones. 

I now realized, what I had scarcely thought of 
formerly, that love and anxiety for those dearest to 
us furnish a large part of the stimulus of endeavor. 
If the world by some new ordering of nature should 



RETIREMENT 



305 



be peopled with bachelors, even though they were 
endowed with limitless longevity, most human en- 
terprises would fail. Genius, like Thoreau, would 
be tempted to slip away into a cabin in the woods. 
Dull greed would doze in slippered ease ; — that is, if 
there were left in men, without the altruism of fam- 
ily love, enough grit to build fireplaces and buy 
slippers. 

The same is largely true of the desire for repute, 
especially for applause. Unless renown echoes in 
other ears close to our own, it at length becomes 
empty clatter. 

I once watched a noted orator whose wife and a 
few intimate friends were in his audience. At every 
burst of applause he turned toward the little group, 
and caught new inspiration from their gratifica- 
tion. I recall one of the most stage-hardened prima 
donnas, in answering the calls before the curtain, 
having bowed right and left and forward, made her 
hand-kiss to her mother who sat in a specially re- 
served seat. I think of Pope's dictum only to ques- 
tion it : 

" Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul." 

In my own case — and I make no plea of modesty 
— the glamour of mere repute faded like October 
leaves with advancing years and lessening loves. 
The esteem of the few who lived in my heart became 
more to me than any commendation of strangers, 
however many or notable. 

And how rapidly strangers were taking the place 



306 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



of familiars as the years did their inevitable work ! 
To seek goodly reports from the outside, as I con- 
fess I had done in earlier life, was now positively 
distasteful. My scrap-book of passing memorials 
Avas utterly neglected, and most of the earlier pages 
found their place in the fire, notwithstanding that 
a remnant of juvenile vanity would now and then 
tickle me, if it was touched in exactly the right spot 
— the mind's funny-bone — by some even trifling suc- 
cess. My old dog and I are alike. He will still 
raise one ear and wag his tail when patted, though 
he shows by the brevity of the spasm that he would 
rather be left alone. 

I must mention the failure of another incentive 
to continued activity. The one closest to me had 
passed away. For forty years she had been like 
one lobe of my brain as well as of my heart. We 
had shared each other's thoughts. Except when it 
was in purely extemporaneous form she knew be- 
forehand what I would say in public, every subject 
upon which I was working, every case of interest. 
She was my gentlest, but severest, critic, for she 
erased my errors by wisely correcting my own logic, 
and made my own conscience — which had practi- 
cally become her conscience — show me my faults. 
Hers was not so much an associated mind as it was 
an inner mind, that seemed to look out from some 
deeper centre of my own soul, and discern more 
clearly than I saw myself what I meant, or at least 
what I ought to mean. The bond that united us 
was more than love ; it was unreserved friendship. 



KETIKEMENT 



307 



I am aware that some will think I have reversed 
these terms from their proper sequence ; but others 
will appreciate the expression as it stands. 

As the knight in the tournament measured his 
strokes, ever conscious of the glance of his ladye 
faire, so I was never able to divest myself of the 
sentiment of chivalric obedience. I laid every 
trophy at my wife's feet, and in her look I read 
consolation for every failure. When, therefore, she 
passed beyond she took with her through the cloud- 
gates the better part of myself. What was left was 
emptied of its accustomed incentives, as the flavor 
escapes when the box that holds the ointment is 
broken. 

The New Liberty. 

I, therefore, cut the cords of professional obliga- 
tions, except in cases where long professional ex- 
perience might enable me to render such service as 
could not be equally well rendered by others. 

With retirement from routine obligations began, 
except for sorrowful reminiscences, the most con- 
tented part of my life. No one was master of my 
time or thoughts; and if only I could have self- 
control, and did not forget my own ideals, I could 
put my best elements into the dictator's chair. But 
alas, that " if " ! How often it has proved revolu- 
tionary and overturned personal self-government ! 

The best thing about my new liberty from the pro- 
fessional race-track was that it allowed me breath- 
ing spells, in which I could cool off inordinate inv 



308 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



pulses, check over-hasty purposes, and take daily 
doses of " sober second thoughts." I could now 
make engagements with myself — the most impor- 
tant individual to deal with, and the one who gives 
us most trouble if we don't live up to our contracts. 
I said, " I need now advocate nothing that does not 
appeal to my deepest convictions; need follow no 
coterie or crowd because of the bonds of associa- 
tion ; need fear no one's opposition ; can change my 
views about things in the waters above or the earth 
beneath without involving my party or my church 
in any mistake I may make." 

I appreciate this phase of personal liberty, espe- 
cially as I read over again a letter received during 
the war. The writer is a clergyman belonging to 
one of the State churches of Europe. He has lost 
his faith, not in Christianity, but in some tenets 
peculiar to the ecclesiastical institution with which 
he is identified. To announce at once publicly his 
change of views would cost him his present posi- 
tion as an army chaplain, in which he is very useful, 
ministering to the wounded and bereaved in the ter- 
rible war. He writes to me, for he must tell some- 
body of the deep currents struggling in his soul; 
and I am across the seas, so that he may speak in 
a confidence he might not wisely show toward any 
one in his home parish. It is not with him a ques- 
tion of obedience to his church. That he could set- 
tle instantly by open dissent, taking the conse- 
quences as every man has a right to do. But un- 
fortunately his conflict is between two great and 



KETIEEMENT 



309 



solemn duties, — duty of honor to himself as an hon- 
est thinker, and duty of love to hundreds of the 
mangled boys on the battle-field, whom he will be 
permitted to serve only in his chaplain's uniform. 

Many a clergyman feels a similar antagonism be- 
tween his usefulness and the details of a narrow 
creed or the martinet control of little ecclesiastics. 
Many a lawyer feels the conflict between his sense 
of absolute right and some particular duty to a 
client. Many a statesman feels it between his oppor- 
tunity to practically serve his country only through 
party agency and his conviction that his party is 
wrong in some of its shibboleths. ISTo man in any 
sort of public life can escape at times the feeling of 
inconsistency. 

" Consistency is a jewel." But sometimes incon- 
sistency will cash for more real truth, more reason- 
ableness and more virtue at the bank of the soul, 
and doubtless also on the account books of Heaven. 

I congratulated myself also in that, without 
harming others, I could now break with some of my 
past notions; go squarely back on some former 
cock-sure declarations ; realize that I didn't know a 
lot of things I once thought I knew. There is a 
wonderful exhilaration in standing at the opening 
of vistas from which one has been previously barred 
by conventional preoccupations and engagements. 

Best of all I was free from myself. Like a mov- 
ing river I could slip by my banks, and need not 
stagnate at the old water-holes. Siegfried couldn't 
weld securely the parts of his broken sword. He 



310 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



must grind it up and recast its particles into a new 
blade. Our moral and mental metal must at times 
be similarly treated. 

I bow my bead bere and say a prayer, — God grant 
that I may not inadvertently think a bit of the 
broken blade to be the whole new sword, and be- 
come an opinionated, cranky old man, presuming to 

" Teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule — 
Then drop into myself — and be a fool. ' ' 

Sailing Atcay. 

A man who has been active for years and tries to 
retire is like a fly in a spider's web. The threads 
are strong and exceedingly gluey. But, having 
broken through, I took to the wing — or, to speak 
literally, I took ship and sailed away. 

New associations help one to pull himself out of 
his old self. The air of Europe affects an occupa- 
tion-stifled American very much as a seventh sum- 
mer air makes a locust break his shell. That is an 
argument for giving our college professors at least 
a Sabbatical rest outside their habitual environ- 
ment. 

Much of the advantage of travelling is that one is 
generally incog. As nobody knows or cares who 
you are you can't talk shop. I once made a day's 
inland voyage with a distinguished prelate. His 
garb gave him away. Every one who approached 
him conversed about the good man's diocese or his 
books, or sawed at the old knots of denominational 
controversy. He couldn't get outside of his pro- 



RETIREMENT 



311 



fessional burrow if lie tried. I pitied His Eeverence 
in spite of his big gold cross and knee-breeches. 

Let me say in parenthesis that I believe that 
clerical garb, whatever compensating advantages it 
may give, lessens a clergyman's knowledge of fellow 
humanity. Courtesy to the cloth leads most men to 
treat ministers as they would treat women, — the 
seamy side of life not shown them. Yet on that 
seamy side will be discovered the most essential 
things in the making of human nature, things which 
a preacher especially ought to know. 

The same is measurably true of men who are well 
known as political leaders. Others, aware of their 
opinions and ambitions, hesitate to antagonize them 
in conversation. Hence, as a rule, our big politi- 
cians are the most ignorant of what is moving the 
brains of the multitude. 

One does not fully know oneself until he has con- 
sorted with many varieties of the genus homo, as 
one does not know the geography of his own coun- 
try until he has "bounded" it. Seeing foreign 
lands rubs out one's American provincialism, and 
rubs off those national conceits that other nations 
call prickly. It is good to take object-lessons in 
the fact that we are not the most scholarly, scien- 
tific, philosophical, free-minded, self-respecting, 
decent-lived, courteous, saintly, common-sense peo- 
ple in the world. We are a new branch on the old 
tree of humanity, and haven't yet come to much 
more than the twig stage. 

It is especially good for an evangelical Protestant 



312 ALONG THE FEIENDLY WAY 



to discover that priests and ex-priests, orthodox and 
those who call themselves doubters, may be equally 
religious and lovable, as one learns on long voyages 
with them or in being shipwrecked together with 
them on the otherwise socially barren island of a 
foreign hotel. The only men worth despising are 
bigots, those who, with God's great headlands ris- 
ing everywhere about them, can reach no higher 
standpoint of observation than the tips of their own 
noses. Some of my most profitable acquaintances 
abroad have been monseigneurs and Methodists, 
monks and masons, boots and barons, prima 
donnas and pension keepers, archaeologists and 
dump-diggers, linguists who interest one with their 
erudition not more than do the peasants with their 
patois. It is good to realize, because it is true, that 
you are only a tiny splinter of the monolithic moun- 
tain called Man, and that you ought to care little 
if, while civilization is tunnelling its way, you have 
had a spark struck out from your personality or not 
to attract the eyes of others. 

Drifting With the Ages. 

A great delight while residing abroad has been to 
reread what I thought to be familiar history on the 
spots where the events occurred. I soon discovered 
that, while my memory had retained most of the 
facts, I had previously caught from the written 
page as little of its spirit as a landsman who only 
looks at a " painted ship on a painted ocean " gets 
from it the soul of the sea. 



RETIREMENT 



313 



For instance, when one sits on the stone seats of 
the theatre at Syracuse in Sicily and knows that 
they were once occupied by men and women who 
lived and died long before Christianity, one feels 
kinship with the scarcely shirted rustics whom 
Theocritus made immortal as his heroes. The ages 
seem to become cemented together into solidarity 
when one is in the Arena at Verona, trying to re- 
people it with the old Roman crowds, while a regi- 
ment of Italian Bersaglieri dashes by at double- 
quick. To spend Saturday among the Druid stones 
of Cheswick and Sunday in a Presbyterian con- 
venticle in Edinburgh is good for a theologian, un- 
less he be a fool. It is well for a stickler for forms 
and orders to stand bestride a hole in a slab and re- 
call the fact that down through that hole once ran 
the blood of a bull, and fell upon the head of a priest 
being ordained to the service of Mithra. Medita- 
tion about the Normans while loitering on Pont 
Neuf in Paris, followed by a stroll around the Tuil- 
leries and a night at the Grand Opera House, mixes 
one's gray matter into better substance. 

Such things make one feel kinship with multitu- 
dinous humanity. It takes away one's conceit, in- 
dividual, national and racial, to see that human 
nature is ever the same ; to realize that, to one look- 
ing down from the heights of time, the changing 
customs of human generations would no more break 
the monotony of the real scene than the changes in 
an ant-hill when studied by us. 

Now this is humiliating. It makes one feel like 



314 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



crying with Elijah, " Take away my life ; I am no 
better than my fathers ! " 

Then comes the reaction. One feels the greatness 
of one's own humanity, as something infinitely be- 
yond individuality environed with local limita- 
tions. The traveller fills his chest with the at- 
mosphere of the Ages and says, " We built the 
Pyramids. We discovered the stars and the Poles. 
We built empires; shook the earth with our wars 
and reestablished the foundations of a better civi- 
lization." Except God, " in whom we live and move 
and have our being/' there is nothing so splendid as 
a man. An autumn leaf, if it had appreciation, 
would not whistle a tiny dirge in falling, but, like a 
banner lowered at nightfall, it would salute with its 
fluttering beauty the glory of which it had been a 
part. 



xni 



BUNGALOW DAYS 

ON my return home after long sojourns 
abroad, to gently assure myself that I had 
really retired from the world and its 
vanities, I imitated other ascetics, and built me a 
cell, at least a lodge, in the wilderness. The spot 
selected was, when seen from its own immediate 
standpoint, utterly lost in a trackless forest; but, 
when bounded by the rest of creation, it was just 
within the edge of the woods; so that, if I could 
hear the whoop of the owl in the twilight, the 
grunting of the ground-hog at noonday, or the morn- 
ing calls of the birds that sing their matins to the 
sun, I could also hear the rumble of a passing auto, 
the halloo of a chummy neighbor, and the dinner 
call from the family house. 

I have learned from some attempts at it that too 
deep a solitude is not conducive to the best mental 
activity. It may help one to sink the lead of medi- 
tation deeper into the mud of one's imagined ex- 
perience, but I doubt if it clarifies the depths. 
Possibly I am too stupid to be left alone, and need 
the prodding of suggestions from without. Quiet 
affects me as a belt of calm affects a sail. Some 
minds are like motor-boats; they carry their own 

315 



316 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



propulsive power — John the Baptist and John Bur- 
roughs, for instance — but we ordinary men need ex- 
ternal stimulus. 

I find that the white and black page of a book, 
the fly-tracks of the greatest mind that has crawled 
over it, are apt to be without inspiration. There is 
needed close at hand the soul-glow of a thoughtful 
face, the emphasis of the living voice, the response 
of the quick repartee or the kindly debate to keep 
one fully alert. That " nest in the wilderness " may 
be a good thing for moulting doves, but is the last 
place for a man to fly to unless he is pursued by 
the sheriff. 

My exclusive bit of the universe was, therefore, 
just within the primeval forest. So I judged it to 
be from the inextricable tangle of underbrush, the 
interlacing of trees overhead, and the dense " con- 
tiguity of shade " all round. Scarcely a foot had 
penetrated so far, unless it were hoofed like a deer's 
foot or moccasined like that of a wildcat. Here 
and there was a gnarled and scraggy apple-tree, 
with fruit too hard and knotted to allow the sun- 
shine to sweeten and ripen it. Was it an aboriginal 
relic of wild growth or the degenerate scion of a 
planted orchard? The oldest inhabitant could not 
decide. Yonder was the ruin of an ancient wall of 
stones. But this led no whither, and may have 
marked the disappointment of some settler of long 
ago in finding the ground inhospitable to the plow. 
Great boulders scattered about might be the mono- 
lithic monuments of the victory of original nature 



BUNGALOW DAYS 



317 



over the assaults of civilization. Giant pines, rest- 
ing in the deep beds of their own needles, seemed to 
he dreaming of unknown centuries. Ferns stood 
high above the heaps of black mould and inter- 
twisted roots, like the coral flowers in the reefs 
built upon their oavu dead generations. Wild 
flowers were in such profusion and such varieties 
that surely no botanist had ever tried to set them in 
scientific array. 

So, though not far from the world of humanity, I 
went far " back to Nature's heart " for my bunga- 
low. I was attracted to the exact site by a little 
opening in the thicket that showed to the west, — 
like my years. A wide valley, then a ridge of hills 
that shut out the finality of sunset, fascinated me 
because it was so much like the mystery that ob- 
scures the life horizon, however bright it may be 
with faith's anticipation. A solitary house, too, in 
the distance reminded me how few are those re- 
maining who are tabernacling nearer to the sunset 
than I am. 

A comparatively cheap bungalow has charms 
that no residentially-furnished house can match. 
The latter makes one feel that he is more owned 
than owner. The very door-mat is a sort of bristly 
butler that denies your admittance to your own 
property until you have bowed and scraped yourself 
into prescribed society appearance. The furniture 
is not so much your own selection as it is a tribute 
to the taste of the cabinet-maker and upholsterer, 
and if it is less homely it is also less homelike. The 



318 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



parlor pictures are a little too familiar, for — unless 
they are in oil with the artist's mark in the corner — 
you may see their duplicates and multiplicates in 
the parlors of your neighbors who bought them in 
the same shops. The spirit of one's fine " resi- 
dence " seems to be that of an over-tidy housewife 
who warns you, " Don't lie there ! " " Don't smoke 
here ! " " Be careful everywhere ! " 

I recall a wealthy gentleman whom I used to visit 
at his palatial residence on Fifth Avenue. After 
showing me his half -mill ion picture gallery and 
enough curios to enrich a public museum, he would 
say, — " Now come and see where I myself live." 
We would retire to a small room, the cartridge- 
papered walls of which made a good background for 
cheap engravings, photographs of scenes he had 
visited and faces he admired, some of them cut from 
the magazines, a melange suitable for a college- 
room or a Bohemian artist's garret. 

" Take a chair ! Better take two ! " he would say, 
and himself set the example, — one for his body, the 
other for his feet. " Now let's have a talk. A 
pipe? or a cigar? The women folks can have the 
rest of the house." 

My bungalow serves me similarly. To decorate 
it I ransacked the residential attic for things that 
were too valuable to destroy and not good enough 
for display, each of which had, however, a mean- 
ing for my eye and memory : scenes from travel, bits 
of art-study, strong faces of strong men, saints, 
madonnas, and opera singers I had heard, together 



BUNGALOW DAYS 



319 



with family portraits of the five generations I have 
known, which consecutively would cover two hun- 
dred years or, say, one-twentieth of the period of 
known human history. Here is food for mental 
entertainment even should I lapse into second child- 
hood. 

For comfort there is a heavy chestnut board, 
resting on four unbarked legs cut from the forest 
just outside, which serves for an omnium- gatherum 
library table, — the gift and workmanship of a 
friend — a few wicker chairs with lines drawn to 
meet one's back in its laziest mood; a wide and 
smoke-blackened fireplace with crane and kettle; a 
pile of logs with the resin in them ready to sing 
songs when the blaze shall make the shadows dance 
among the open rafters ; my old rifle that could tell 
yarns enough to wreck one's reputation for verac- 
ity; some old books the very backs of which are 
reminiscent of their twice or thrice read contents; 
and a few of the newest books to remind me that I 
am still in the world throbbing with exciting inter- 
ests. Over the door hangs a bell with its curiously 
carved yoke that once graced the neck of a goat 
which bleated at me on the slopes of Etna ; this will 
warn me if any interloper should steal in upon my 
midday snooze ; while a seventy-five millimeter shell 
from the battle-field of the Marne, suspended above 
my table, gives adequate warning of the terrible 
consequences to any tramp invaders. 

Safely nested in a hammock that swings from a 
rafter, like the nest of an oriole suspended from a 



320 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 

limb of a tree, I listen to the monotonous " thump, 
thump " of a distant mill, and my drowsy thoughts 
fall into a rhythmic imitation : 

Each day I '11 lie among my books 
That line the shelves and fill the nooks. 
Books are the souls of greater men 
Who come from everywhere and when, 
Laden with lore and happy thought 
That gold and silver never bought. 
Like old-time friends around they stand, 
And wait to speak at my command, 
And tell of everything they 've seen 
In all the provinces they 've been, 
Of nature, science or of art, 
In realms of fancy and of heart — 
Some trifling things, but most profound, 
Of earth and sky and underground ; 
Things deep as soul and high as faith — 
Whatever man or angel saith. 

And then some day I'll lie quite still, 
Obedient to my Maker's will, 
And give no sign, nor round me look 
On wall or chair or open book, 
And answer not to loved ones' call — 
Held in the Final Mystery's thrall, 
My soul will then have gone away 
Mid deeper worlds than ours to stray, 
To learn of things that ne'er were told 
By writer here, the new or old — 
Those things that pass the range of sense 
And give to thought no recompenee — 
Of lands too fair for artist's skill 



BUNGALOW DAYS 



321 



To paint their charm of vale and hill — 
Whose seas are sunset's blended lights; 
Whose days are bounded not by nights ; 
Whose streams are Life itself, and pour 
From out God's heart forevermore. 
. . . Deep, reap, keep, weep. — 
Dear me, I must have dropped to sleep. 

When I awake the pictures pinned, tacked or 
hung on the plain boarded walls of the bungalow 
start in me each its memory. That one was made 
by the fingers of one of America's most promising 
artists ; fingers that one day — how terrible the shock 
to me! — suddenly trembled, then dropped forever 
moveless; but which I still feel clasping mine in 
our rollicking friendship of long ago. 

That photograph yonder is the face of a brilliant 
young journalist and fellow traveller. A young 
lady comes in and looks at it. "Yes; that is my 
father. I have no remembrance of him. I was 
too young. Please talk to me about him." 

There is a pencil sketch of a ruined doorway on 
the Palatine Hill in Rome. How much more I can 
see in it than any one else can! Amid the ruins 
my eye seems to catch a heroic figure. It wears 
neither crown nor sword; only the black robe of a 
modern priest — the man who made the picture and 
gave it to me. I must tell his story. 

Padre had been a somewhat noted pulpit 

orator in Rome, very popular in clerical circles. I 
felt honored, almost distinguished, by his call upon 
me at my hotel. I spent a delightful half hour 



322 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



listening to his conversation about the arts and 
history of the city; he identified so many ancient 
things and repeopled so many forgotten places out 
of the full store of his information. He rose to go ; 
but, as his card bore no address, I ventured to ask 
where I might return his visit. He hesitated a 
moment, then said : 

" I have no home address ; but you will find me 

any morning in the Gallery, where I have 

an easel." 

My expression of surprise brought a sad story. 
He had refused to take the Anti-Modernist oath 
prescribed by the Church, which required a pledge 
that he would read no book or periodical not 
licensed by the ecclesiastical authorities. This re- 
fusal had brought him deposition from his office as 
preacher, excluded him from the privilege of cele- 
brating Mass except privately for his personal 
edification, and led to his being ostracized by his 
fellow priests. I learned in our after acquaintance 
that he was reduced to abject poverty ; for his skill 
as an artist was too meagre to bring him any ap- 
preciable income. 

I need pass no judgment upon the wisdom or 
righteousness of the ecclesiastical regulation from 
which the Padre suffered. I speak only of the 
tremendous conflict into which it precipitated the 
good man's soul, — a conflict between his conscience 
and the allurements of a distinguished career in the 
Church which he devotedly loved and in whose 
doctrines he believed. He made no complaint 



BUNGALOW DAYS 



323 



against his superiors, and had not a harsh word for 
his fellow priests who seemed to have disowned 
him. 

Since our first acquaintance I had been absent 
from Rome for two years. On returning I could 

for a long time find no trace of Padre . 

Priests of my acquaintance gave no information 
beyond that indicated by a significant shrugging of 
the shoulders. I at length discovered him. He 
lived in the most squalid part of the city. His 
tiny room was furnished with a cot, a couple of 
broken chairs, an old easel, his Bible and Missal, 
and a few books. 

Yet the Padre had found a mission. He said, 
" There are a score or two young human rats of the 
lower Tiber, boys that know nothing about ecclesi- 
astical matters, who seem to like me. They come 
to me for talks, and I am trying to make of them 
decent men and good citizens. I wish I could lead 
them into the Church, but you see that I cannot. 
It is a great satisfaction to know that no author- 
ities can prevent me from doing a little good." 

"No! No!" he said on my rising to leave, "I 
can accept no personal help, unless I can render you 
some service in return for it. I notice that your 
Italian might be improved." 

So Padre became my teacher. A more in- 
telligent, clean-souled and big-hearted man one 
seldom meets. I practiced my rheumatic Italian 
on him in telling about American affairs, and he 
gave me model lessons in the purest Italian in 



324 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



telling me about his own country. If I approached 
the subject of his own sorrows he would reply some- 
thing like this : " It's a crooked world we are all 
living in. If any man would go straight with his 
convictions he must meet obstacles, perhaps get 
knocked down. All he can do is to get up again 
and walk on more carefully. But let's talk about 
those Italian idioms, which you seem to think are 
idiotisms" 

When I left Rome Padre — gave me that 

pencilled sketch of the ruin on the Palatine for a 
keepsake. My musings as I look at it put other 
lines in the picture than those which the eye dis- 
covers. 

Nearly all these engravings and photographs on 
the wall are windows through which I see far vistas 
that start deep breathings. Let me indulge the 
prerogative of an old man to be garrulous about 
some of them. 

Yonder is pinned up a postal card. It represents 
a little village on Lake Garda in Italy. On the 
edge of the card is written a message from a young 
Italian friend with whom I, only a few years ago, 
spent some happy days coursing over those opales- 
cent waters and roaming over the hills that wash 
their feet in that golden basin of the Alps. My 
friend was a Roman lawyer about to enter the 
diplomatic service of his country, and with the 
ardor of his contemplated profession believed that 
diplomacy would solve the problems of empire. 
We were looking through a gap in the mountains 



BUNGALOW DAYS 



325 



toward the monument on the battle-field of Sol- 
ferino, where in 1859 the Italians and French won 
the liberation of Lombardy from the age-long 
tyranny of Austria, and thus secured the right of 
way for the new kingdom of Italy. 

" That, I think, is the last monument to be 
erected to commemorate conquest by bloodshed/' 
said my friend. " We are passing out of the brute 
stage in the development of humanity. Diplomacy 
has taken the place of the sword. The Triple 
Alliance and the Triple Entente will by their bal- 
ance hold at least Europe in peace." 

So he talked, and I hopefully assented. 

A few months later came this postal : 

"At the Front. 122 Reg't. 

"I am on the historic battle-ground where 
we were together. What a change ! " 

Two months later : 

" Field Hospital in the Trentino. Hard to write 
with a lot of Austrian shell-pieces in my body. I 
am the only officer of my company not killed out- 
right in the charge." 

One year and half later: 

" Just discharged from the hospital. Going back 
to the Front." 

I must take that postal -picture off the walls. It 



326 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



absorbs too much of my heart's blood to look at 
it — and think. 

Just beyond is a photograph of one of the grand- 
est men I have ever known, as unselfish as he was 
brainy, incessantly giving of his time and money 
to upbuild his community. To-day he is a hopeless 
paralytic, his malady brought on by "excessive 
exposure " in the cause of others. A thousand 
philosophers could not disentangle my thoughts as 
I sit looking at the picture. 

Beyond is the photograph of one whom I have 
known from boyhood, and who has recently served 
a double term in the Presidency of the country. 
As I watch the rugged features I recall our house- 
hold predictions of how he would or wouldn't turn 
out, and especially remember a brief outing in the 
shun district when he was a lad of fourteen and 
accompanied me on a private raid, and how he ex- 
pressed a longing for a "big stick" to break up 
such dens of iniquity as we there found. 

There, too, is a famous opera-singer, posing in 
some majestic crowd-captivating role. But I think 
of her, not on the stage, but sitting by the big 
chimney-place under the picture, knitting like a 
modest frau and talking about how they crocheted 
in Germany. 

I have placed the next two pictures side by side 
because they suggest a contrasting facial study. 
One is of an ideal saint, painted by Perugino. The 
other is a newspaper print of a Eussian soldier 
conscripted from some bog or thicket on the Asiatic 



BUNGALOW DAYS 



327 



border. Honestly, I would trust the latter rather 
than the former in any worldly business. The 
saint is looking complacently God-ward ; the soldier 
is looking good-naturedly man-ward, perhaps at 
some other jolly fellow in the trench ; or telling how 
he helped a comrade out of a death-vortex. If I 
should meet the two I should expect the one to try 
to convert me into a monk like himself. The other 
would go snacks with me in his ration. 

Self -diagnosis of Old Age. 

How does it feel to be an old man? It doesn't 
feel. The sensations of age are less acute than 
those of youth. When the blood leaps in our veins 
it jerks us ; when it flows more placidly it soothes 
us. I know from reading physiology that my 
arteries are like an old garden hose, liable to break 
at any moment or with a slightly extra pressure, 
but the life current still runs through them 
smoothly. Of course, the hydraulic engine of the 
heart has rusted valves which will soon stop work- 
ing, but they work steadily yet. Undoubtedly old 
legs couldn't carry so far as once they did, but then 
an old fellow doesn't want to go so far ; so it's an 
even game. I can sit longer in my easy-chair with- 
out restlessness, and that is delightful. Eyelids 
get heavy with reading, but I can take cat-naps 
without incessant alarm lest something in the world 
wants me to be watching it. Teeth impaired? No, 
repaired, and the workman has put no distressing 
nerves in them. Eyes dim? Well, I can see more 



328 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



of the world's broken things than I want to, and 
more of its fair things that leap and shine about 
me than I can appreciate. 

Landor said, "Age never droops into decrepitude 
while Fancy stands at his side," which is another 
way of saying that sentiment keeps the heart young 
though the marrow dries in the bones. Austin 
Dobson comments on this : [I'll quote it as a text 
upon which I may comment on Dobson.] 

' ' So Landor wrote and so I quote, 
And wonder if he knew ; 
There is so much to doubt about, — 
So much but partly true. 

" Can one make points with stiffened joints? 
Or songs that breathe and bum ? 
Will not the jaded Muse refuse 
An acrobatic turn? 

* 4 No! on the whole the fittest role 
For Age is the spectator's, — 
Reclined in roomy stall behind 
The ' paters ' and the ' maters,' 

" That fondly watch the pose of those 
Whose thought is still creative, — 
Whose point of view is fresh and new, 
Not feebly imitative. 

" Time can no more past youth restore 
— Or rectify defect ; 
But it can clear a failing sight 
With light of retrospect." 



BUNGALOW DAYS 



329 



For all the genial poet's " stiffened joints " and 
make-believe pessimism, it is clear that Dobson be- 
strides no spavined Pegasus. " Fancy stands at 
his side," and proves Landor to have been correct 
at least in one very lovable instance, namely, that 
Dobson never " droops into decrepitude." If his 
bones refuse the Spanish dances his brain lobes are 
as nimble as the fingers that play the castanets. 

The rattle of Dobson's rhythm makes even my 
pen beat the measures, although I can no more 
write poetry than club-footed men can " trip the 
light fantastic toe." Hear how my heels patter. 

Yes, Landor's right. If Fancy bright 

Stand every day beside me, 
There 's no decrepitude of mood 

Though seventy years betide me. 

For I have found the Psalmist's bound 

Of life to be as cheery 
As boyhood's days; no field to yield 

The thorns and vistas dreary. 

The flowers renew their scent and hue ; 

The birds keep up their singing ; 
The katydids with fiddling feet 

Set all the valleys ringing. 

The squirrels trim from limb to limb 
Eun o 'er their airy highways ; 

And all the brooks with shady nooks 
Invite me to their by-ways. 



330 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



The forest trees moved by the breeze 
Their graceful boughs are swaying 

Like hands of priests in benison 
Above a sinner praying. 

I care the less for th' scant caress 
Of strangers' hands and faces, — 

But aye, the friend of years appears 
More dear for mem'ry's traces. 

The madding world with fashion twirled 
Draws from me naught but glances ; 

'Tis but one step of th' beating feet 
Of ages in their dances. 

Does thought move slow ? So rivers flow 
When flooded from great fountains ; 

Not half so grand the dash and splash 
Of streamlets on the mountains. 

There's not a thing that does not bring 
The thought of God 's own kindness ; 

The sun and moon and stars afar 
Drop rays upon my blindness. 

My musing perhaps doesn't follow the poet's 
rhythm, but rather the swish and whirring of that 
old grist-mill down yonder, whose stones grind in 
a sort of cadence ; or maybe I have got the beat from 
the leg motion of a lame tinker who is coming up 
the road. 

Old Age Losses and Gains. 

My effort to write rhyme suggests the question, 



BUNGALOW DAYS 



331 



Do I notice any change in brain function due to 
advancing years? 

Yes, in some respects for the worse ; in some for 
the better. Verbal memory, for instance, is not 
reliable. I would not now trust myself with an 
exact quotation in making an extemporaneous ad- 
dress. Names of persons and places sometimes fail 
me at most unfortunate moments, as in hastily in- 
troducing acquaintances, or buying a railroad ticket 
in the scramble at the office. I seldom get out of 
the dilemma as I did once in Wales. When asked 
where I was going I replied, " I don't know. I can 
neither write nor pronounce the tongue-tangling 
name of the town." "Oh," said the agent, "you 
must be going to ." He was right. 

I am surprised to note that this mnemonic il- 
literacy does not apply to dates. In earlier days I 
was as forgetful of them as some spinsters are of 
their ages, but latterly I can fish them up more 
readily. Possibly it is because, having grown 
familiar with the sequence of historic happenings, 
I bait my hook with the event associated with the 
date. 

I note also an increasing retentiveness in respect 
to modern languages. As a young man a dic- 
tionary or grammar was my bete noire; but they 
are becoming companionable. Since passing my 
seventieth year I have acquired a fair reading ac- 
quaintance with two Continental languages, and 
experience a growing pleasure in their study. But 
for less responsiveness in the ear-drums I might 



332 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



enjoy a rat-a-tat conversation with, the natives of 
the respective countries. 

It is also easier as one grows older to retain ab- 
stract truths, principles, generalizations, system- 
atic groupings of facts in philosophy, science or 
history. Possibly this is because these things are 
more interesting to one who has had a lifelong 
habit of thinking about them; and interest seems 
to indent anything upon the memory. That such 
subjects are more vague than definite facts does 
not lessen their importance nor their power of ap- 
peal to the mind, as the mountains lying out yonder, 
though wrapped in the haze of distance, are the 
most significant and fascinating objects in all the 
landscape. 

I console myself with the notion that an old 
person thinks in straighter lines and with wider 
vistas and therefore with more simplicity and wis- 
dom than a young person. If the mind does not so 
vividly take in the details, neither is it detained by 
them, and so escapes the danger of being perplexed 
over their multiplicity. It sees the general flow of 
the river better for not noting all the curvatures of 
its banks. Oftentimes the dimming of the faculties 
may be rather the shading of the mind, which gives 
it clearer vision, as when one puts his hand over his 
brow to look farther away. One may plausibly 
strike at least a balance between the losses and 
gains of advancing age. The mental costs and 
compensations are perhaps equal. 

As the years pass we lose our interest in many 



BUNGALOW DAYS 



333 



things that once attracted us. This in an un- 
healthy person, one who has prematurely con- 
tracted senility, may be due to failure of the faculty 
for appreciation. The mind is in such case like an 
old mirror from which the quicksilver has dropped 
in spots, or its once pure white sheen become mil- 
dewed by the damp and dust of years, so that it has 
ceased to reflect vividly the various objects that 
move before it. 

But where the brain has been well preserved by 
temperate living, and the mind remains unabused 
by illogical and meretricious habits of thinking, the 
lack of interest in the passing show of life may 
come from familiarity with its characters and char- 
acteristics. For much of the fascination of things 
is in their appeal to our curiosity. A first visit to 
the Yellowstone Park is exciting. The spouting 
geysers, boiling springs, and calcareous coatings of 
rocks and vegetation are novelties. A second visit 
is apt to be disappointing because our wonder has 
ceased. So in early life almost all things are 
phenomenal, awakening new impressions, startling 
us with little or great surprises. Later they are 
commonplaces. So was it with the Wise Man of 
Scripture, who had seen so much that he saw noth- 
ing with avidity and relish, and wrote, " The thing 
that hath been it is that which shall be; and that 
which is done is that which shall be done ; and there 
is no new thing under the sun." To those of us 
who are far less experienced than Solomon the 
world often seems veiled in desuetude, — not always 



334 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY ' 



innocuous, since it tempts to pessimism : a disease 
to which old people are less immune than youth. 

An old story reader as he slums book after book 
is apt to think, — how rarely do romances make a 
really new plot! Writers glean from the older 
pages to garner into the new. One does not find 
in a score of novels one really novel touch of human 
nature. Modern sketches of life are generally only 
some odd drapings of the lay figures which, like the 
leathern breeches of our ancestors, have served 
other generations. Philosophy! Read your out- 
lines from Pythagoras to Aristotle, think a bit, and 
save your money on the rest of the " high-brows." 
Society! The same mixture of rouge and powder, 
diamonds and paste, brocade and fustian, soirees 
and slander, elite and parvenu, lords and lackeys, 
the Four Hundred and the Four Hundred Mil- 
lion — you will find all American society, English, 
French, German and Finnish too, in Horace and 
Lucian; if not, try Thackeray or any last year's 
newspaper to supply what is lacking. Social gyra- 
tions, the world over and time through, are like 
those of a swarm of yellow butterflies on a dusty 
road. How can one keep interested in these old 
things without brain stagnation? 

But some things never cease to fascinate us. 
For instance, a grand scenic view. The hills over 
yonder seem grander and farther away than they 
used to. This is because, though I could measure 
the distance with a surveyor's chain, it is too vast 
for the mind really to appreciate. As the imagina- 



BUNGALOW DAYS 



335 



tion expands it takes in more, and thus the vista 
seems to expand. 

An artist of note built near me his studio. He 
placed it on the slope of a little valley rather than 
on a knoll that commands a glorious outlook. He 
explains his choice thus : " Even this limited view 
is more than I can absorb. See the variety of trees, 
the ever-changing colors, the graceful folds of the 
hillocks, the twisting brook, the birds of many 
shapes and songs. Every day increases my joy in 
it all. My soul isn't big enough, nor ever will be, 
to take in any more." This growing capacity of 
the mind — which I believe is always growing — 
makes " a thing of beauty a joy forever." 

For the same reason we can never exhaust our 
interest in anything that is sublime. Sublimity is 
always transcendent. The essence of it is beyond 
us. Nothing is sublime that our faculties can 
bound. Hence it excites in us a feeling of inspira- 
tion. The thirst deepens as we drink. A healthy 
old man is apt to be a confirmed drunkard in his 
appetite for the illimitable. 

Friendship and love never tire us for a similar 
reason. A dear one's heart has depths deeper than 
the sea. As the years of congenial companionship 
go by I read more and more in the face of my friend ; 
find new charm in his accents. His plainest letter 
has a hidden meaning. Others reading it over my 
shoulder would seem to understand every word of 
it; to me the phrases, though superficially in- 
telligible, are also hieroglyphs which I interpret 



336 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



with a clue that love lends me; yet every time I 
read them they yield a new and fuller meaning. 

So I put friendship among the sublimities. It 
also is transcendental. This may be the reason that 
the Bible makes more of the love of God than of 
His power and wisdom. It is the greatest thing in 
the universe, if we may compare infinities with in- 
finities. And the love of man for man has this 
quality of the infinite: it is interminable; a ray 
penetrating eternity. But God's love is infinitely 
expansive ; not a ray, but the fullness of day. 



XIV 



RECREATIONS OF AGE 



Memories Revived and Revised. 

A LABGE closet adjoins my house library. 



I call it the Hall of the Archives ; the family 



regard it as my Biographical Ash-bin. Into 
it for many years have gone scraps of paper that, 
though not worth littering my table with, were too 
valuable for the waste-basket. For several decades 
I had promised my children and house-servants to 
sift said refuse, hoping to find therein some clinkers 
that might be burned over again. 

The contents of the old closet impressed me with 
the immense amount I had forgotten. There were 
letters from persons with whom I had corre- 
sponded, sometimes officially, sometimes even 
fondly, and sometimes rather hotly, but of whom I 
have now only the dimmest recollection, or none at 
all. I am reminded of a clergyman who once asked 
me to call upon a certain gentleman who might help 
in a benevolent scheme in which we were both in- 
terested. As I was about to visit the individual I 
received a special delivery note from the clergy- 




337 



338 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



man, saying, " Don't try to see Mr. . I 

buried him six months ago." The clergyman's 
lapse of memory queered me at the time, but now I 
can sympathize with him, since there are names 
among my old-time correspondents which, had I 
been suddenly asked upon the witness-stand, I 
might have declared I had never heard of. Mem. — 
Have charity for some people who are reputed to 
be liars. 

In another respect my dust-bin has helpfully 
humiliated me. There are certain incidents in my 
memory that greatly interested me at the time of 
their occurrence, and have often been mused over 
and even related to others, but which the discovery 
of the original documents convinces me were a 
little not so. The Psalmist struck a weak spot in 
human nature when he said, "While I mused the 
fire burned." The flames grow bigger than the 

original kindling. I now know that Mr. 

was not so wicked, Mr. not so heroic, and 

some events neither so wonderful nor so mysterious 
as I have been for years imagining them to have 
been. I may have been prejudiced, favorably or 
unfavorably, by what others have repeated to me; 
for when we gossip we are apt to cast strong side- 
lights upon our topic, and thus project thick 
shadows that entangle themselves with the real 
shapes of things and somewhat distort them. 

The Archives furnish an illustration in point. 
Here is a letter from a gentleman of highest stand- 
ing. It contains a proposition that I should unite 



RECREATIONS OF AGE 



339 



with him in a certain scheme. A copy of my reply 
shows that I declined to engage in the matter. Yet 
a few years after our correspondence this gentle- 
man in the presence of others, being angered at 
something, accused me of having once made to him 
this identical proposal, and told with somewhat of 
conscientious gusto how he had scorned to accede 
to my suggestion. I withdrew from the circle for a 
while, exhumed the correspondence, and presented 
it to the company. The gentleman stood for a few 
moments in utter bewilderment confronted with his 
own handwriting, then with frank apology con- 
fessed his error. I can understand the incon- 
sistency. He had brooded so long and so unwisely 
over the matter that he had hatched out a creature 
with its head on the wrong end of its body. Or 
perhaps the fire of musing had been so hot that it 
fused together his own imagination and memory. 

At the time of this outburst of misplaced right- 
eousness I recalled the advice of an old business 
man which led me to found my dust-bin : " Keep a 
record of all matters that you are sure are not un- 
important. Buy a letter file and a copying press. 
Recollections become hazy." 

Here is another equally unfortunate brace of 
letters. 

No. 1. 

" Dear Sir : 

" You are altogether in the wrong. I agree 

entirely with your opponent, Mr. W . It is 

only fair that I should plainly say so." 



340 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



No. 2, from the same writer a year later : 

" Dear Sir : 

" I am informed that you are under the im- 
pression that I opposed you in that matter. I did 
not. You were clearly right. I have always 

thought Mr. W to be an unwise man. I could 

not side with him. It is but just that I should 
write you this, that you may have no ground for 
thinking unfavorably of my position." 

I have not the slightest doubt of this gentleman's 
honesty. He had changed his mind, and forgotten 
that he had changed it. Mem. — If this be so re- 
garding matters once distinctly in our personal 
knowledge, can we give unquestioning credence to 
even honest witnesses of historical events, to their 
characterization of men and movements with whom 
or in which they have been closely engaged, espe- 
cially when years have passed between their orig- 
inal observation and their narration, during which 
the witnesses were liable to be influenced by their 
own predilections or hostilities, or by much confer- 
ence with others like-minded with themselves? 
Marginal notes have a persistent tendency to get 
into the text. 

My meditations in the refuse-closet were pro- 
ductive of another impression. I had hitherto 
thought of my life as a short one. First and second 
childhood seemed to touch. Life a " span," a 
" breath," a " vapor " — how apt the similes ! But 
as I slowly moled my way through the age-yellowed 



RECREATIONS OF AGE 341 



and dusty papers I felt that I had been a long time 
going. 

What multitudes of people I have known, com- 
panioned with or fought with ! How many ventures 
slowly planned and wearily pursued for months 
and years, many of them futile! What depths of 
experience that exhausted patience until I cried, 
How long? as I climbed down into or up out of 
them! What protracted waitings and watchings 
in times of fear, sitting beside a loved sufferer, 
nursing returning health, or smoothing the path 
for those who were on the road that has no turning ! 
Each of these experiences was like a condensed life- 
time. And what a multitude of them ! 

These old papers remind me also that I have lived 
contemporaneously with a long period of the world's 
history. This package of letters tells me of my 
brother's tramp across the Rocky Mountains about 
the time that Daniel Webster was orating on the 
impossibility of the Republic passing that gigantic 
wall on which Heaven had written, " Thus far and 
no further " to our national ambition. 

Another note refers to my cousin, a preacher in 
"Bleeding Kansas," who laid a brace of pistols 
across his Bible, while the deacons stacked their 
Sharp's rifles in the pews on either side. 

Here are letters from a brother, written from 
many a field, as for four years he followed the 
bloody steps of progress in the Civil War. 

Here is an old address, made the day after the as- 
sassination of President Lincoln. By request I 



342 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



repeated it nearly fifty years later. Most of the 
time of its second delivery was spent in explaining 
the meaning of its original references, and in at- 
tempting to reproduce the sentiment that lay be- 
tween the lines; for, with all our knowledge of 
Lincoln, the present generation does not know him 
as he was to those of us who followed or opposed 
him in the days of his testing. 

I also have come across a reminder of a pleasant 
visit at Elberon during Grant's Presidency. The 
General very graciously received my host — one of 
his army staff — and myself. The happiest remem- 
brance of the hour was, however, sadly marred by 
our reading in the next morning's paper, — " Grant 
on another drunk." "Not seen for over a day." 
A college president later informed me that Grant's 
next " debauch " was spent in the company of him- 
self and his venerable wife ! 

This bit of paper records the birth of the still 
existing French Eepublic, and that one tells of the 
founding of New Germany, and another scrap indi- 
cates the making of Italy out of its heterogeneous 
medieval kingdoms and duchies. And I have lived 
through these world-shaking events and felt their 
tremor ! 

While the heap of my Archives has been growing, 
Science has advanced more than in any thousand 
years before. Forests have given place to cities 
containing millions of inhabitants. The common 
life of mankind has changed its customs and ideals. 
The map of the hemispheres has been torn up 



KECREATIONS OF AGE 343 



and repasted. Several Armageddons have made 
the earth rock as with earthquakes, and several 
heralded Millenniums have dawned behind the 
thick clouds that blotted them out. 

And yet I am still living! Surely Methuselah 
was not so old, unless the ancient records have been 
mutilated by the redactors. As I come out from my 
closet for fresh air I feel the weight of my shoulders 
and that I ought to be stooping. I imagine that 
even my trousers' knees have bends in them that the 
tailor can never press out because of the crooked 
limbs inside them. I shake off from my hands the 
dust of those old boxes and envelopes as a Pharaoh 
coming to life might have rubbed from his hands 
the dust that had infiltrated itself into his coffin. 

Again and again I plunge into its melange. 

How the closet fascinates me. In it are rare 
comedies and tragedies too. Here is a taste of the 
latter. 

A young girl writes me from the county jail : 

" Dear Sir: 

u I have lived through another night in this 
horrible place, but it is killing me. I am slowly 
but surely going out of my mind. The people here 
are the very lowest of human creatures. I hold my 
hands over my ears to shut out the blasphemies. 
Another such night and I will hang myself to my 
cell door. Pray for me, and for — him." 

This girl was very poor, but bright, and had 
secured a position as secretary to a professional 
man of some prominence. This man's wife was a 



344 ALONG THE FEIENDLY WAY 



termagant, apparently crazed by the drug habit. 
An affection sprang up between him and his secre- 
tary. They eloped. The girl was charged, ap- 
parently at the instigation of the wife, with having 
committed theft of jewelry, etc. Knowing the 
girPs family, I could understand how in her igno- 
rance of society she might have been led into her 
escapade, but could not believe in her dishonesty. 
I visited her in the prison. Her whole demeanor 
confirmed my impression of her innocence in the 
matter of the theft. But that prison! It was a 
pandemonium of bestiality. And here was a poor 
soul, whatever her folly, still with a sense of honor 
and refinement, shut up for weeks in this al- 
most hellish association with hardened criminals. 

Judge allowed me to take the girl to her 

own home and put her under her mother's care, on 
condition that a benevolent lady in our neighbor- 
hood and I would be responsible for her appearance 
in court when called. 

( Several letters relating to the affair are missing 
from the package. I would not retain them, but 
had thrown them into the fire as soon as I had read 
them. They were from certain very righteous 
people who upbraided me for having interfered with 
the "just punishment of an abandoned woman.") 

The trial of the girl came off. There was not a 
scintilla of evidence for the theft. The property 
alleged to have been stolen was not even missing. 

Another letter in this packet is from the man who 
misled the girl. It says, " She was entirely inno- 



KECKEATIONS OF AGE 345 



cent. I alone am to blame for her leaving her 
home. I shall make any amends that can be pnt 
upon me." 

The man's wife died. He at once married the 
girl. They moved away, and I believe have lived 
quiet and honorable lives in their new community. 

Here are letters from an acquaintance who had 
spent twenty years in prison for forgery. I first 
knew him as a rather brilliant young lawyer. The 
story of the blasted life is too sad for publication. 

Let me take the bad taste out of the mouth by 
some things better. In a letter I read, " I think 

Mr. has made a large contribution to our 

national life in the way of moral enthusiasm." 
The man who wrote that sentence was the oppos- 
ing candidate to that Mr. in a political cam- 
paign for the Presidency, — a campaign unrivalled 
for abusive oratory since the days of Thersites. 
The courteous reference to his rival was in a letter 
written on a matter entirely foreign to the election. 
The writer went out of his way to pay the compli- 
ment to his antagonist. Contrast this with the 
scandals which the smaller fry of politicians in- 
dulge in. 

Let me repeat in this connection a remark once 
made in my hearing by a Judge of the Supreme 
Court: "I have now been for over forty years a 
close observer of men in Washington. They are 
of all sorts. But I have never known a states- 
man who long retained prominence and the public 
confidence who was not also great-hearted, honest, 



346 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 

generous, and possessed of high ideals of conduct. 
Herein lies a secret of even political success." 

I should like to print that at the top of every page 
in the diaries used by our rising generation of 
politicians. 

Here is a letter which I prize for a sentence in it, 
which is like a little window looking in upon a gen- 
erous soul. 

There had been discovered in an Eastern monas- 
tery a document dating from about the second cen- 
tury A. D. It was difficult to translate with ac- 
curacy, being written in Byzantine Greek. My cor- 
respondent, an expert classical scholar, had pub- 
lished a rendition of the document into excellent 
English. His work was highly prized by scholars 
and widely praised. A little later another scholar 
published another translation. On seeing it the 
first translator recalled his own work, and pro- 
nounced the opinion that the new attempt was the 
better one. In a letter I expressed the view that, 
while his action showed magnanimity, it was hardly 
called for, his own work having such merit that it 
should be widely circulated. In his reply occurs 
this sentence: 

" I enjoy a thing better said by another more 
than I do anything I can say myself." 

Now scholars and literary men are human, and 
have a partiality for the children of their own 
brains. Goethe for a while carried at least a bod- 
kin for Schiller, and the wrangle of poets reminds 
one of the bickerings of the gods on Olympus, which 



KECKEATIONS OF AGE 347 



Virgil rebukes, " Tantsene animis ccelestibus irae? " 
In spite of his disclaimer, I adhere to the notion, 
that my correspondent did a very fine and a very 
rare thing. 

Here is a bit of paper that has revived the 
memory of several months of delightful study. I 
had been asked to read a paper before a historical 
society. I assented to write on the career of a 
hero of whom I had the vaguest impression except 
that he was a real hero. My promise was con- 
ditioned on the Society's furnishing me with needed 
information. My mention of the name brought the 
reply from the learned secretary : " Who in thunder 
was Scanderbeg? " A few evenings later at a 
literary club I propounded the secretary's ques- 
tion. A professor of history in one of our big 
brain hatcheries replied instantly : " Why, he was a 
Scandinavian mythical character." A noted edu- 
cator ventured to correct him : " No ; he was a Ger- 
man theologian. I am sure that I have read one 
of his books." Having but just acquired the in- 
formation myself, I immediately posed as a superior 
authority, and announced that the mysterious in- 
dividual was none other than a medieval Balkan 
chieftain. The task of resurrecting his life and 
times was one of the most pleasurable episodes 
of my own life. It was a rare relief from the 
madding crowd of our own day to lose oneself now 
and then in the Albanian mountains, and mingle 
with the people who sang and fought there a half 
century before America was discovered. 



348 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



Here is a " scrap of paper " more honored than 
that which passed between Germany and Belgium. 
A famous trial was in process. The crowd was 
especially interested in the anticipated appearance 
of two prominent citizens who were presumed to be 
bitter enemies, and would on the witness stand tear 
each other's reputations to tatters. Meeting Mr. A. 
casually, I asked, "Why are you so incensed at 
B. ? " He replied, " I have nothing against him. We 
once quarrelled. But we shook hands over the af- 
fair. I don't know why he threatens to assail me. I 
must, of course, defend myself." Later I met Mr. B. 
"Why are you so incensed at A.?" He replied, 
" I have nothing against A. We once had a sort 
of misunderstanding. But we made it up. But 
why should he threaten me? I must, of course, de- 
fend myself." I said, " Will you lunch with me to- 
morrow, and tell me more? " He accepted the invi- 
tation. I then sought A. and invited him also, but 
said nothing of Mr. B.'s expected presence. When 
the two met it was like the meeting of two black 
clouds charged with lightning. Neither spoke for 
a moment. I then repeated to them jointly what 
each had told me. " Now, gentlemen, I will leave 
you together for ten minutes while I talk to my 
wife about the fried potatoes. If you don't like 
the lunch we will countermand it." The lunch 
came off. Not a word was uttered by any one about 
the occasion that brought the party together. 
Neither testified at court. But I have and will al- 
ways treasure a little bit of paper signed by both. 



KECKEATIONS OF AGE 



349 



One other bit of jetsam before I make a wreck 
of the old closet : At a watering-place I met a lady 
of remarkable beanty and brilliancy, a distinguished 
social leader. I have never seen a finer specimen 
of the charm of face and form that perfect health 
combined with proper art can give a woman. 
Every evening she was naturally the centre of a 
group of admirers, I, of course, being only a thread 
in the fringe of her receptions. One night she had 
been especially vivacious, with bright repartee to 
each one who wished her a pleasant journey to her 
home on the morrow. I and my wife were the last 
to speak to her. She surprised us by saying, 
" Won't you come out to the piazza where it is now 
quiet, and give me a little talk? " There with our 
backs to the hotel lights, and facing the stars, she 
said, " I am apparently in excellent health, am I 
not? But to-morrow I am to submit to a surgical 
operation which, as I am warned by my physician, 
is usually very painful and seldom successful. I 
have tried to show by my manner no anxiety. 
Why should I cast the shadow of myself upon 
others? Besides, none of these people could say 
anything to help me." 

We talked very seriously until a late hour; yet 
we talked cheerfully of problems beyond the touch 
of the surgeon's knife. The next morning a servant 
brought me a note, and with it enclosed a pretty 
little scarf-pin. The note read : " Please keep this, 
which I have picked at random from my bureau 
cushion, as a reminder of our conversation last 



350 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



night. I am sure that all will be well, even if not 
as we will it." A few weeks later I received the 
following from a member of the lady's family: 

" has passed the ordeal successfully ; thanks, 

say the physicians, to her courage and cheerfulness 

through it all. She sends to you and Mrs. 

her greetings." This was before the day when 
Anaesthesia became the goddess presiding over hos- 
pitals and chambers of suffering. 

So much for the old closet. I have just spent 
an hour by my grate fire, burning hundreds of 
letters and mementoes, lest, after I am gone, they 
should fall into the hands of those who could not 
interpret them. Why not? Pulvis et umbra 
sumus. Many hundreds of documents I retain just 
to munch on when memory calls. But as they 
relate to peculiarities of my own career they have 
no place in the reminiscences of one who poses as 
only a specimen of the genus homo. 

Interest in Little Things. 

In these more leisurely days I find much pleasure 
in making the acquaintance of little things, which 
in the exigencies of a crowded professional life I 
often overlooked. I now envy some of my friends 
who, though they had bigger projects on brain and 
hand than I had, had the disposition and took the 
time to interest themselves in things which to my 
bigger conceit seemed too trivial to divert me. How 
many resting spells from groove-worn thoughts, 
how many brief but exhilarating mental excursions, 



EECEEATIOJSTS OF AGE 351 



how much knowledge acquired which would have 
made me wiser and more able to interest and in- 
struct others, would have been mine if I had fol- 
lowed more frequently the beckonings of things 
which I esteemed of little account ! 

Now that I can pause and look around I am spell- 
bound by the multitudinous wonders that environ 
me. There are no little things, except in physical 
bulk or passing form. As the slender ray from the 
tiniest facet burns with a lustre from the diamond's 
heart, so there is scarcely anything that does not 
bring one a wealth of suggestion. A wave is not a 
bit of bellying water ; it has more scientific signifi- 
cance than the richest galleon sunk in sea. A leaf 
is an offshoot of the mighty energy of universal 
vegetation, and not a mere fluttering patch of color, 
like a rag on a bush. A smile may signal love as 
deep as the soul. An unpremeditated act may re- 
veal a whole character. A child's face prematurely 
old with toil or poor food may serve for the indict- 
ment of our entire civilization. 

They miss much who are always straining after 
the seemingly great things. Their eyes are tele- 
scopic; they take in the stars, but do not note the 
flowers and faces that throng life's pathways. 
They are obsessed to know the big theories, the 
marvels of discovery ; but they never note the 
arched neck and velvety step of a horse, or how a 
dog looks at you, and tries to say, " I love you." 
They are familiar with the crashing events of 
ancient history, the renowned names in the world's 



352 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



biography, but have no interest in Jane or Jim or 
the policeman who watches their property, nor in 
the fine table-linen that mother-in-law gave to 
Mary, nor in their own boy's school lessons, nor 
why he didn't lick the other boy whose demesne is 
the other side of the fence. After all, the wind- 
ings in the life-path may mean more for our happi- 
ness and usefulness than even its destination. 
Life's greatest lessons are often in its episodes. 

I recall the advice given us by our old professor 
of rhetoric : "Avoid great themes. Take a slender 
topic, and try to broaden it, for every truth has 
limitless outreaches, as every brook finds its way 
to the sea." 

Friends With Nature. 

For contented old age one should be on good 
terms with nature. I like Wordsworth's 

* ' I love the brooks which down their channels fret, 
Even more than when I tripp'd lightly as they." 

Nothing can be more depressing for a man who 
feels his failing strength than a notion that nature 
is depleting him, is inimicable, wants to afflict him 
and bring him low. For this torturing folly we are 
largely indebted to the pessimistic literature that 
abounds. We are scientifically and poetically 
bugabooed with the fantasy that the winds that 
sough through the forest are the dirge of vegeta- 
tion; that sea-waves are the teeth of the ocean 



RECREATIONS OF AGE 353 



snapping at the enterprises of men; that earth- 
quakes are the scowling wrinkles of sudden passion 
on mother nature's face, volcanoes her eyes flash- 
ing with rage, tempests the breath of her scorn 
and hate. 

On the contrary, I am convinced that nature is 
our best friend. This I say notwithstanding the 
memory of some painful slappings she has given 
me, the scars of which I still retain. Let me make 
an extreme contrast. Man is supposed to be loving. 
" Humane " is derived from " Human." Yet since 
1914 men have wrought more horrors on the earth, 
made more mutilated flesh, piled higher human 
bodies, made more " countless thousands mourn " 
than all the catastrophes of nature during the six 
thousand years of the earth's known history. Any 
one of a hundred battles has made more wreck than 
the earthquake of Messina or the lava-sea of 
Vesuvius. And this cruelty is man's deliberate 
treatment of his fellows, coolly calculated and re- 
morselessly pursued. 

But nature has never shown any such grudge 
against a human being. That she is deaf and 
blind, and does not know whom she is hurting, is 
the worst that can be said against her. She is at 
least no worse than the fat mother who smothered 
her babe by rolling on it in her sleep. 

But what about natural diseases and death? 

It has yet to be shown that torturing diseases 
can be scientifically charged to nature; that man 
himself is not indictable for " criminal negligence " 



354 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



in allowing their spread. Unnatural living, where 
the hasty flush of passion or the indulgence of 
temporary weakness has prevented the self-disci- 
pline of common observation and common sense, is 
recognized to have been the occasion of the intro- 
duction among mankind of the most terrible of our 
physical scourges. Purely natural disease, if we 
may call it such, slowly lessens the physical func- 
tions, and often age furnishes its own anaesthesia. 
But for what man himself has done to enfeeble it 
bodily vitality would doubtless vanish as gently 
as the odor passes from the drying petals of a 
flower. 

Medical science attests this optimistic view of 
disease with the theory that remedies are only ex- 
j)edients to assist nature in her usual processes, 
which all make for health. Vis Natura has been 
the choice prescription of physicians since the days 
of Galen. Even the ancient Decalogue declares 
that the Lord of nature visits " the iniquities of the 
fathers upon the children (only) unto the third 
and fourth generation," but that He shows " mercy 
upon thousands (of generations) of those that love 
Him and keep His commandments. " As in the old 
mythology, Antaeus has only to touch the earth to 
renew his strength. 

Death, when it comes in the due process of 
nature, that is, when unaccompanied by the pains 
induced by either inherited or personal trans- 
gression of nature's laws, is not an evil. The 
Arabs say that "Death is the Kiss of God": — a 



KECKEATIONS OF AGE 



355 



kiss that gently steals away our breath. There is 
vast benevolence in the scheme that prescribes for 
a man, tired with the wear of his generation, that 
he shall lie down and rest; that when one has be- 
come satiated with his experiences of this world, 
indurated in his opinions (as most old people are) 
he should move on, and so make room for fresh life 
to people the world. There is nothing sadder than 
to see an old man, like a shrivelled apple on a 
December tree, trying to cling to his withered 
branch on the tree of life. 

So I comfort myself in my brown and crisp days 
with the thought that better men may be nourished 
on any substance I may leave behind me, especially 
if any tiny bit of the moral and intellectual world 
shall be at all fertilized and enriched by my having 
lived in it for a time. 

This is not merely my philosophy ; it is a part of 
my religious faith. Christ was the Lord of nature ; 
His miracles proved it. The great value of miracles 
was not in the amount of happiness they gave to 
their immediate beneficiaries, like the blind and 
sick whom He healed, but rather in that they 
demonstrated that the universal system of nature 
was dominated by Himself, the most loving being 
that ever trod the earth. 

With such a faith I find a constant exhilaration 
in trying to exercise it. In love of nature I en- 
deavor to " hold communion with her visible 
forms " that disport themselves at my bungalow 
doorway. What multitudinous insects buzz their 



356 ALONG THE FKIENDLY WAY 



paradisiacal psalms as they flit through their brief 
generations ! The birds and beasts, in that blessed 
unintelligence that shuts out anticipation of evil — 
in which lies the bulk of human suffering — all take 
their part, singing, croaking, roaring, according to 
their various laryngeal instruments, in the grand 
diapason of their Creator's praise. The crash of a 
falling pine tree, making room in the soil for its 
successor, punctuates the music like the ringing 
strokes in the Anvil Chorus. And I sit in my door- 
way, and purr my part in the general worship. 

Owling Hours. 

" Do you sleep well o' nights? " inquired a vener- 
able friend. 

" No, thank God ! I don't," I replied. 

" What ! " exclaimed my friend. " Do you thank 
God for insomnia? To me sleeplessness is like be- 
ing swallowed by a boa-constrictor that keeps me 
stuck in his throat for hours. In the darkness one 
can only think, think. I hate it. So I sometimes 
get up and read, or watch the stars until my eyes 
blink back at them." 

" To me," I replied, " the best part of the day or 
night is when I can lie awake in the small hours, 
before the roosters and the milkman make me doze 
off again with their monotonous noises. There is 
so much to think about ; and one can't think satis- 
factorily in the daytime, when family and neigh- 
bors and newspapers are apt to break up the 
pleasant web one is spinning. But it is a bit of 



KECKEATIONS OF AGE 357 



Paradise to lie flat on your back, on a bed soft 
enough to make you forget that you have any pro- 
jecting angles on your body, when darkness and 
silence are so thick about you that they muffle the 
senses and keep them from obtruding their trivial 
suggestions, — then to live over the past and pros- 
pect the future, to spin romances, and enact trage- 
dies with yourself safely out of all danger. How I 
have at such times rollicked with my own remem- 
bered boyhood, made love again to my wife, played 
with my babies now possessed of babies of their 
own, refought my battles, rewon my successes, took 
again my worstings when they no longer hurt, wept 
over the recollection of sorrowful hours, but 
thanked God for the " loved and lost a while " ! 
What crowds of familiar faces look in upon me — 
faces that have withdrawn from sense-sight into the 
Great Haze ! 

Then, too, as I lie awake I think of what the 
great world is doing, what it did yesterday, what it 
did a thousand years ago, and what it is going to 
do long after I have dropped out of its melee. 
What a tremendous play to watch ! And one can't 
watch the stage well unless the lights are turned 
down in the rest of the house. 

The best things I have ever thought of, at least 
that I have thought out, had their hatching-hour 
between midnight and dawn. Then I have ar- 
ranged economically and wisely the program for 
the following day, developed topics upon which I 
must write or speak, and, above all, settled ques- 



358 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



tions that have disturbed relations between " Me 
and Myself." 

" You must have a good conscience, or a bribed 
conscience, to talk in that way," says my friend. 
" You evidently haven't had the temptations and 
tumbles that I have had, or you wouldn't run so 
light-footed over the past." 

" No," I reply, " I haven't a good conscience. If 
I should criticize myself I would be stuck as full of 
devils' arrows as Saint Sebastian was. But I don't 
criticize myself. I am not worth criticizing. It's 
too small business to be finding fault with oneself. 
But give me a saint, and I will point out his very 
freckles with jealous delight. Job said that the 
Lord imputes folly to His angels, but the good 
Book also says that, as for the sins of common 
folks, such as you and I, the Lord forgets them, — 
that is, of course, if we ourselves don't like them, 
which is the real meaning of repentance. I once 
quarrelled with a man who said with sanctimonious- 
ness, 6 1 forgive you, my dear friend, but I can't 
forget it.' That is worse than c Injun giving.' God 
doesn't forgive with a string attached to His grace. 
He says, ' I will remember them no more forever. 
I will blot them out as a thick cloud,' and spread 
over you only the clear azure of my smile. Now 
I am not greater than the Almighty. If He 
doesn't shadow me, I'm not going to shadow myself. 
Besides, if a man should forgive another seventy- 
times seven times, shouldn't he be a little merciful 
to himself when the Lord tells him that He has no 



RECREATIONS OF AGE 359 



longer anything against him? So I don't let my 
wretched past disturb me o' nights any more than 
I would let the mice nest in my pillow." 

" But," pursues my friend, " aren't you some- 
times anxious about the future? The night black- 
ens with its darkness all my bugbears. I need the 
full sunshine to cheer me before I tackle the prob- 
lems that lie ahead of me." 

" What," I reply, " do you want of the sunshine? 
Look at the stars in the night sky. I think of them 
as the myriad eyes of God. And don't you remem- 
ber that the good Book says, 6 The eyes of the Lord 
run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show 
Himself strong in behalf of all those whose hearts 
are toward Him'? With the sky full of watchers 
I lie awake until I purr myself to sleep again with 
as little anxiety as a kitten has in the lap of her 
mistress." 

The Great Gloaming. 

My old friend frequently visits me. He is not far 
from the exit of life. He is like some awkward 
people who have the habit of standing in the door- 
way, saying that it is time to be going, but delaying 
their departure, and perhaps letting in a cold 
draught upon those who remain. My friend's ques- 
tions are as chronic as are the twinges of his rheu- 
matism. 

" Where do you think we are going when the 
mortgage on the body is up and we have to move 
out?" "What do you imagine we will do out 



360 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



yonder, when we have no limbs to do anything? " 
"Are there any Gates Ajar in the Beyond, or is 
there only infinite vacuity? " " How are we going 
to be at all without bodies, and with less matter 
than a wind has? " 

I used to debate with my friend. We have had 
some intellectual wrestling matches, out here on 
the crumbling edge of Land's End. Plato's argu- 
ments for immortality, Cicero's hopes, medievalists' 
dreams of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, all the 
ghostly shapes recently discovered flitting through 
the brains of the Society for Psychical Research — 
we have thrown these at each other's heads until 
the violent exercise has threatened to hasten the 
fatal stroke that impends over both of us. 

Finding debate about the unknowable utterly 
unsatisfactory I adopt a new method. I assume 
a manner of utter nonchalance. 

" I don't know, and I don't care who, what, 
where, how, or for how long I shall exist after the 
frost of life has split off the last bit of the rock of 
my present being." 

Of course, this startles my friend. He thinks I 
am worse than an agnostic because I want to be 
one. Then I appease his fear for my sanity by 
something like this : 

"Your son James is going away, out into the 
uncertainties of life. But one thing is certain: 
wherever he goes you are going to follow him with 
your solicitude. You are going to set him up in 
business, put your name on his paper if necessary, 



KECKEATIONS OF AGE 361 



and so forth. I haven't heard the details of yonr 
scheme, but that I understand is your general pur- 
pose. Is it not so? " 

" Of course it's so," he replies. " But how did 
you or anybody else know that? I have told no- 
body, not even the boy's mother, what is in my 
mind." 

" Nobody told me," I reply. " It wasn't neces- 
sary that they should. But everybody knows just 
what you will do for James. He is bone of your 
bone, and as far as you have been able to give your- 
self to him, soul of your soul. You have always 
done everything that is paternal. You have edu- 
cated him, given him a good time during his youth, 
disciplined him at times when it hurt you more 
than it did him. Now that James is about to begin 
another sort of career you are not going to drop 
him. I would insult you to think such a thing. 
I am sure that the boy is going to do well if his 
father lives and doesn't go into bankruptcy, or 
James himself doesn't go astray. I know that as I 
know that the river which has flowed so far will 
flow on in the same direction, only getting deeper 
and broader. Now see here, old chum, hasn't the 
good Lord — ' He after Whom all the fatherhoods in 
heaven and on earth are named,' — hasn't He been 
good and thoughtful toward you and me for over 
three-quarters of a century? Do you think He will 
go back on us now that we are at one of the crises 
of our existence? Why then go back on Him? It 
shows a lack of faith, a lack of common decent con- 



362 ALONG THE FRIENDLY WAY 



tklence to be incessantly asking Him how He is go- 
ing to do things. That is the reason that I say 
I don't care for the future. I mean, of course, 
that I don't carry care for it. I like Whittier's 

' ' ' God forgive the child of dust 

Who fain would see where faith should trust/ 

You and I are neither of us made of the stuff that 
martyrs are made of — not having been made to be 
martyrs — but we ought to be ashamed to let old 
Polycarp beat us in his magnanimity. You re- 
member that he said to his executioners who wanted 
him to deny God, 'Eighty and six years have I 
served Him, and He has done me no harm. Why 
should I deny Him? ' When I was a young fellow, 
as foolish as I was ignorant, I used to play Atlas, 
and try to carry the world on my shoulders. But 
now I am going to let the world roll as God wants 
it to, and to roll me along with it. I can trust the 
gravitation of the Eternal Love to keep me safe 
somewhere on the surface. We don't need to over- 
come our fear of death by any forced belief in 
crowns and glories that are preached at us. As 
Shelley would put it, we are not human moths 
fascinated by the stars. We ought to be contented 
with what God-directed Evolution has in store for 
us at the next cataclysm. The worst that can 
happen to us is the bump at the landing on the 
eternal shore." 

In this way we two old pals chat at the great 



RECREATIONS OF AGE 



363 



doorway, as we metaphorically pull up our coat 
collars and prepare to go out. 

Now comes the news that my friend has really 
made his exit. He passed quietly. Why not? I 
think some new hand must have touched his, very 
softly, very loviDgly, and have drawn him through 
the doorway. I am sure that he left a smile for 
me as he went. 

I was one day sitting in a tent in an Eastern 
land, talking with a companion. A sudden wind 
lifted the canvas door-flap, fluttered it a moment, 
then let it fall back again over the opening. It 
fell between us two. I was on the inside of the 
tent, with the narrow vision of cooking utensils and 
Arab pistols. He was outside, and had the vision 
of the hills and sky. So the death-wind has 
separated my old friend and me. I remain in the 
little world. He is in God's great Out-of -Doors. 



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